As with all research projects, you don't want your evidence synthesis topic to be too broad or too narrow. A popular tool for framing research questions in health and medicine is PICO, an acronym that stands for patient/population, intervention, comparison, and outcome. While this is useful for reviews of intervention studies, it's not the best framing tool for review topics that would focus on other study designs, such as observational studies, interview or survey research, and so forth. The table below from Munn et al. (2018) describes some other framing tools for evidence synthesis topics with example research questions for each.
| Review Type | Aim | Question | Example |
| Effectiveness | To evaluate the effectiveness of a certain treatment/practice in terms of its impact on outcomes | Population, Intervention, Comparator/s, Outcomes (PICO) [23] | What is the effectiveness of exercise for treating depression in adults compared to no treatment or a comparison treatment? [69] |
| Experiential (Qualitative) | To investigate the experience or meaningfulness of a particular phenomenon |
Population, Phenomena of Interest, Context (PICo) [13] | What is the experience of undergoing high technology medical imaging (such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in adult patients in high income countries? [70] |
| Costs/Economic Evaluation | To determine the costs associated with a particular approach/treatment strategy, particularly in terms of cost effectiveness or benefit | Population, Intervention, Comparator/s, Outcomes, Context (PICOC) [14] | What is the cost effectiveness of self-monitoring of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes mellitus in high income countries? [71] |
| Prevalence and/or Incidence | To determine the prevalence and/or incidence of a certain condition | Condition, Context, Population (CoCoPop) [15] |
What is the prevalence/incidence of claustrophobia and claustrophobic reactions in adult patients undergoing MRI? [72] |
| Diagnostic Test Accuracy | To determine how well a diagnostic test works in terms of its sensitivity and specificity for a particular diagnosis | Population, Index Test, Reference Test, Diagnosis of Interest (PIRD) [16] |
What is the diagnostic test accuracy of nutritional tools (such as the Malnutrition Screening Tool) compared to the Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment amongst patients with colorectal cancer to identify undernutrition? [73] |
| Etiology and/or Risk | To determine the association between particular exposures/risk factors and outcomes |
Population, Exposure, Outcome (PEO) [17] |
Are adults exposed to radon at risk for developing lung cancer? [74] |
| Expert opinion/policy | To review and synthesize current expert opinion, text or policy on a certain phenomena | Population, Intervention or Phenomena of Interest, Context (PICo) [18] | What are the policy strategies to reduce maternal mortality in pregnant and birthing women in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka? [75] |
| Psychometric | To evaluate the psychometric properties of a certain test, normally to determine how the reliability and validity of a particular test or assessment. | Construct of interest or the name of the measurement instrument(s), Population, Type of measurement instrument, Measurement properties [31, 32] | What is the reliability, validity, responsiveness and interpretability of methods (manual muscle testing, isokinetic dynamometry, hand held dynamometry) to assess muscle strength in adults? [76] |
| Prognostic | To determine the overall prognosis for a condition, the link between specific prognostic factors and an outcome and/or prognostic/prediction models and prognostic tests. | Population, Prognostic Factors (or models of interest), Outcome (PFO) [20, 34–36] | In adults with low back pain, what is the association between individual recovery expectations and disability outcomes? [77] |
| Methodology | To examine and investigate current research methods and potentially their impact on research quality. | Types of Studies, Types of Data, Types of Methods, Outcomes [39] (SDMO) | What is the effect of masked (blind) peer review for quantitative studies in terms of the study quality as reported in published reports? (question modified from Jefferson 2007) [40] |
To get started with basic database searching and using subject headings, please see the instructional videos in the "Journal Articles & Databases" page of this guide. You may also schedule a research appointment with the subject librarian using the contact box on the "Home" page.
Searching resources:
Translation resources:
FSU provides access to MEDLINE and NutriHealth through the Ovid platform. Either can be searched with subject headings using the methods listed in the video.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature) Ultimate provides full-text access to nursing and allied health journals and covers over 50 nursing specialties. Additionally, it features full-text quick lessons, evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, and nursing instructional videos. PICO (Patient, Population, or Problem; Intervention; Comparison; Outcome) searching is supported.
Collection of medical books & journals, and a proprietary search engine for MEDLINE. Includes 68 medical books and thousands of video, audio, and image files.
Prepares full-text systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare. Each Cochrane Review is a peer-reviewed systematic review that has been prepared and supervised by a Cochrane Review Group (editorial team) in The Cochrane Collaboration according to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions or Cochrane Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews.
ProQuest’s online version of APA’s PsycInfo covers journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports, and dissertations in psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, with comprehensive indexing and abstracts from 1805 to present.
Scopus is an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Scopus provides a comprehensive overview of worldwide research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, along with tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
Begin your research by exploring these core engineering databases.
Applied Science & Technology Source Ultimate is a comprehensive research database that covers a wide range of science and technology topics, including engineering, computer science, environmental studies, industrial technology, energy resources and robotics, as well as the business and social implications of new technologies.
Provides full-text access to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) transactions, journals, magazines and conference proceedings published since 1988 and all current and draft IEEE standards.
Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a peer reviewed, PubMed indexed journal devoted to the publication of biological, medical, chemical and physical research in an innovative video format. JoVE takes advantage of video technology to capture and transmit the multiple facets and intricacies of life science research. The video-articles in JoVE visualize experiments in life sciences laboratories including medical procedures. JoVE films and edits videos of researchers performing experimental techniques at universities in the fields of biology, medicine, chemistry, and physics.
SAE Mobilus includes resources covering a wide range of technologies surrounding the aerospace, automotive, and commercial vehicle industries. Included are aerospace standards, ground vehicle standards, aerospace material specifications, technical papers, books, magazines, videos, and journals.
Scopus is an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Scopus provides a comprehensive overview of worldwide research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, along with tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
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