PICO Question Sample Template for Nursing Students

[Title Here, up to 12 Words, on One or Two Lines, Bold Font]

[Author Name(s), First M. Last, Omit Titles and Degrees]

Texas Woman’s University

NURS 5893 Chronic Disease and Restorative Health

[Instructor’s name]

[Date]

[Title Here, up to 12 Words, on One or Two Lines, Bold Font]

[The body of your paper uses a half-inch first line indent and is double-spaced. APA style provides for up to five heading levels, shown in the paragraphs that follow. Note that the word Introduction should not be used as an initial heading, as it’s assumed that your paper begins with an introduction.]

This paragraph should be your introduction. Your introduction follows the title of your paper. You should identify the purpose of your paper and provide a preview of what the paper will include. Remember that formal papers are written in third person.

Background and Clinical Significance of the Problem

Here is where you include background information in relation to your chosen problem. It may be beneficial to include incidence/prevalence or other appropriate data in order to establish relevance and urgency. Be sure to add any supportive clinical guidelines or references as appropriate.

This section should explain why this topic is a problem for clinicians. This section should answer the questions “what is the problem and why is this important?” This section should convey a clear understanding to the reader of why this topic is important and relevant to current nurse practitioner practice.

Clinical Question Identified

This is where you will identify your PICO question. You should state your question and define each of the PICO elements (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome).

Theoretical Model/Conceptual Framework

Here you will describe a chosen model for your project. We prefer this model to be on the Chronic Care Model or Evidence Based Practice model such as IOWA or Stetler, but you may use any model that is approved by your faculty. This model must be directly relatable to your project. You will first describe the model in detail and then you will describe how the model was used to guide the application of your project.

Review of Literature

Search Strategy and Method

You should start off with a description of the search strategy. You should include your search words and terms, the databases used along with the results in those databases for each word or term, and inclusion and exclusion criteria. The reason for exclusion of a study that meets your inclusion criteria needs to be explained either by your exclusion criteria (e.g., English, adults, humans) or your inability to obtain the article despite your best efforts. You should summarize the final result by identifying the number of studies in each category (e.g., # of RCTs, # of qualitative studies, # of cohort studies, # of systematic reviews, etc.). This can be achieved through the use of a figure so you can provide a brief summary and then refer the reader to the figure.

Literature Review

After describing your search strategy then you will evaluate the chosen literature as a whole in relation to your stated problem, grouping the articles into similar categories and examining the strengths and weaknesses of the literature review and how it either supports or does not support your stated problem. Keep in mind that the articles in this section should be research studies, systematic reviews, or summary articles. Do not use secondary sources; you need to get the article, read it, and make your own decision about quality and applicability to your question even if you did find out about the study in a systematic review. You will need to define what evidence rating scale you are using (SORT, Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Rating Scale, American Medical Association (AMA), etc.)

You should include at least 5 references in this review that are relevant to your chosen problem. When writing about a study you should include at minimum the study design, setting, sample, and evidence rating. You should address all of your main relevant studies in the review but do not have to give a full detailed description of all studies. Your summary table of evidence will do that. Discuss the “high points” in this review. Call out the most significant data that helped or that you think will help you decide whether or not to change a practice PICO question sample template

[Heading level 3, flush left, bold italic]

[Note that you can include consecutive paragraphs with their own headings, where appropriate.] If you divide your review articles into categories, you will use this Heading 3 as shown to designate each section.

Finally, the studies in this section MUST relate directly to your PICOT question. Conclude with a summary statement regarding the strength of your evidence. So. . . what is the answer to your question?

Analysis of the Literature

Evaluate the chosen literature as a whole in relation to your stated problem. DO NOT simply restate the information in your table or from the previous review. You should group articles into similar categories examining overall strength and weakness. This section should support your conclusion. This is the “So what” part of the paper. Is there enough information to suggest/enact a change? If not, what can/should be done?

Conclusion (closing paragraph)

The conclusion for this phase of the project will simply be a short summarization of what has been done so far. You should start with a statement regarding the intention of the paper. Mention that a theoretical framework or model was identified to guide the research process and a search of the literature was conducted. You can mention that you identified sources of evidence related to the research question and conducted a critical review of those sources. You will not discuss the analysis or conclusions from this review as that will be covered in Phase III.

References

The Reference list should start on a new page after the text and before any tables, figures, and/or appendices. Double space all reference list entries, including between and within references. Use a hanging indent for all references, meaning that the first line of each reference is flush left and subsequent lines are indented by 0.5 inches.

Present both DOIs and URLs as hyperlinks. Because a hyperlink leads directly to the content, it is not necessary to include the words “ Retrieved from” or “ Accessed from” before a DOI or URL.

Example format:

Last Name, F. M. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title , Pages From – To.

Last Name, F. M. (Year). Book Title. City Name: Publisher Name.

Appendix

Review of Literature Table

Summary of Primary Sources of Evidence

Citation of Evidence
Study Question or Hypothesis
Study Design
Sample/Setting
Independent and Dependent Variables & Tools Used
Data Collection & Analysis
Findings
Recommendation/

Implications
Level of

Evidence

[Example]

Arora, T., Chen, M. Z.,

Omar, O. M.,

Cooper, A. R.,

Andrews, R. C., &

Taheri, S. (2015).

An investigation of the

associations among

sleep duration and

quality, body mass

index and insulin

resistance in newly

diagnosed type 2

diabetes mellitus

patients.

Therapeutic Advances

in Endocrinology and

Metabolism , 7 (1), 3-11.

doi:10.1177/2042018

815616549

“Sleep duration, frequency of night awakenings and nap duration would be directly associated with BMI and indirectly related to insulin resistance through the effects of BMI” (Arora et al., 2014, p. 4). PICO question sample template
Cross-Sectional

study
A. Sample: 522 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus patients, 65.9% male, mean age 63.4 +/- 10.1 years

B. Setting: not provided
A. Independent variables: sleep duration, night awakenings, and nap duration

B. Dependent variables: BMI and insulin resistance

C. Tools: (a) 7- day sleep duration, sleep questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale

(b) measurements of height and weight,

(c) homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance,

(d) self-reported demographics, smoking, average alcohol consumption per week and any history of sleeping problems,

(e) accelerometer to measure physical activity
A. Data collection: sleep diary, sleep questionnaire, objective height and weight, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, and accelerometer for physical activity

B. Analysis: (a) IBM statistical package for the social sciences and SPSS AMOS.

(b) Independent t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests and chi-square analysis “to examine differences between study characteristics according to BMI” (p. 5).

(c) “Bivariate correlations to examine the relationships between sleep duration and number of night awakenings, BMI and logged HOMA2-IR” (p. 5).

(d) Path analysis analyzed with chi-square, Comparative Fit Index, and mean square error of approximation with a p value
a)Average number night awakenings positively correlated with BMI (r=0.22, p<0.001) and negatively associated with insulin resistance (r=-0.16, p=0.04) (b)According to path analysis, night awakenings were directly associated with BMI and indirectly associated with insulin resistance with CMI as potential mediator (p<0.05) (c) Sleep duration was not associated with either BMI or insulin resistance (p>0.05)
(a)Sleep quality plays a role in insulin resistance with BMI as a mediator

(b)Recommend further studies to examine “impact of improving sleep quality on obesity and insulin resistance” (p. 1)
Level II

Figures title (if included):

Figure 1 . [Include all figures in their own section, following references (and footnotes and tables, if applicable). Include a numbered caption for each figure. Use the Table/Figure style for easy spacing between figure and caption.]

For more information about all elements of APA formatting, please consult the APA Style Manual, 7th Edition . PICO question sample template