Learn about evidence-based practice and PICO/PS development

Students are to develop a question to address an area of interest and uncertainty, and demonstrate their ability to use the PICO or PS framework, and document a systematic method to search for literature. Students should complete the worksheet provided and document their searchable question, key search terms and evidence of their database search (using MEDLINE or CINAHL).

Instructions

This assignment will build on your learning during Weeks 1 and 2 of the semester.  During face to face session 1 and preparation activities (including the library session) you will learn further about what a PICO is, how to create one, why we use it, and how it helps us in developing research that is relevant to the clinical world.

In this assessment you will provide evidence of your learning on using PICO or PS and building a systematic literature search.

1. Identify your own situation of practice that presents an uncertainty of best practice.
2. Complete the attached PICO or PS worksheet to plan for your systematic database search.
3. Using the information from your PICO or PSWorksheet write down your Search Strategy in the attached worksheet (please do this in Microsoft Word and not by hand).
4. Enter your search into Medlineor CINAHL using skills you have learnt in the Online Library Study Guide and the information in your Search Strategy Worksheet. (Remember to keep these to just your main topics headings as using too many different terms might result in you missing key papers).
5. Take a picture (screenshot) of your search when is complete and paste it into the section in the worksheet below (example on page 3).

ASSESSMENT ONE: SUBMISSION TEMPLATE

Please complete your assessment activities in the following pages and submit this into Turnitin:

• PICO or PS Worksheet
• Search Strategy Worksheet
• A picture (must be readable!) of your systematic literature search in Medline

PICO or PS Worksheet

Select only 1 – either PICO or PS (PICO for Quantitative situation type questions, or PS for qualitative situation type questions) You may delete the framework you have not used from the worksheet.

My situation of uncertainty of best practice related to a:

Quantitative type of question: I have completed the PICO question?

Qualitative type of question: I have completed the PS question ?

QUANTITATIVE TYPE

1. Use the following categories to help define your problem and what you are looking at in simple terms

PICO: Patient/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome. (Quantitative situation)

(remember to use your readings to help you if you are unsure)

Patient/Problem:  ICU patient at risk of suffering nosocomial infection

Intervention:  Chlorhexidine bathing cloths

Comparison: soap and water

Outcome:  prevention of nosocomial infection

1. Now use these terms from the question above to create your PICO research questionso that you have a clear purpose for your search:  

Are Chlorhexidine bathing cloths more effective in comparison to soap and water in preventing nosocomial infection in ICU patients?

1. What type of question do you think this PICO answers?

The PS answers the question, which is the most effective preventive measure for nosocomial infection between chlorohexidine bathing clothes and soap and water treatment. The answer to the question would help in understanding which preventive measure is to be used for infection control in care settings. In other words, the PICO question attempts to explore the effectiveness of Chlorhexidine bath cloths, a cleaning product used for killing germs, in the prevention of hospital acquired infection among patients admitted to intensive care units.

1. The table below will help you to think of the other terms that you might also like to look up when searching for evidence to help you answer your question – this is part of basic planning for a research search.

• We ask you to look up alternative terms because sometimes articles from health systems call things different names – for example, in Australia we sometimes us the term ‘community nurses’, but in the UK they often talk about ‘district nurses’ – if you only searched under ‘district nurse’ you’d miss all the articles which used the other term – you would be missing some of the picture!

QUANTITATIVE QUESTION

1. Is there a particular group of people that you want to look at? List here any inclusion criteria you might use to refine your search if you have too many papers:

Gender:  __None__     Age Range:  _adolescents, adults and older adults

Publication Dates:  __2010-2018_    Language:  _English

1. What kind of study do you think would best answer your question? Select here which type of article you might want to access. You can also use these to refine your search if you have a lot of papers.

Systematic Search Plan (this is what we call a Search Strategy)

1. Now that you have decided on WHAT you will be searching, you need to put down a plan of HOW you will search for your articles. This helps you and others to see how you got your evidence and how you made sure you got the best evidence to help you decide on your clinical action.

• Using the PICO terms in your table, enter each term in a row (group them together under the PICO categories).
• The next step is to combine similar terms using ‘OR’ so that you have all the papers on the same topic together
• The final step is to find papers which only talk about both the population AND the intervention. To do this you use ‘AND’ in the database.

OR = combine alternate terms for the same topic – to get as many potential papers as possible!

AND = combine the groups of topics to get papers which cover ALL the terms!

1. The final step is to paste in a picture (screenshot/screengrab) of the search that you did in the database. The picture has to be readable

In providing this you show your marker that you are able to take your strategy and apply this into a database system. You also show us that you understand the systematic approach to searching and your understanding of how to use OR and AND as tools to draw together the articles you are interested in. You can use limits, but you would only do this if you wanted to refine your search because you had too many papers to search through.