– State your PICOT question.
– Indicate in parentheses after each segment, what part of PICOT the preceding words represent.
– For example: In patients recently discharged from the hospital following care for heart failure (P), do hand-off calls by the nurse to the primary care provider using the SBAR format (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) (I) compared to no calls (C) decrease readmission rates (O) over a one year period (T).
– Provide feedback to your classmates that focus on:
– The use of the correct PICOT format for the question to guide the literature search.
– Does the question reflect a clinical issue and one appropriate for an evidence-based practice project?
– Can this project be completed in a primary care setting if the student is in an NP program?
– Can this project be complete in a setting appropriate to the student’s focus–NE, NA, NI?
– Does the student need to include time or a comparison group to get the answer to their question?
Note: many times, the population chose can serve as their own controls.
T
o fully implement evidence-
based practice (EBP),
nurses need to have both
a spirit of inquiry and a culture
that supports it. Inour first article
in this series (“Igniting a Spirit of
Inquiry:AnEssential Foundation
for Evidence-Based Practice,”
November 2009),we defined a
spirit of inquiry as “an ongoing
curiosity about the best evidence
toguide clinical decisionmaking.”
A spirit of inquiry is the founda-
tionof EBP, andonce nurses pos-
sess it, it’s easier to take the next
step—toask the clinical question.1
Formulating a clinical question
in a systematicwaymakes it pos-
sible to find an answermore
quickly and efficiently, leading to
improved processes and patient
outcomes.
In the last installment,wegave
an overviewof themultistepEBP
process (“The Seven Steps of
Evidence-Based Practice,” Janu-
ary). Thismonthwe’ll discuss
step one, asking the clinical
question. As a context for this
discussionwe’ll use the same
scenariowe used in the previous
articles (see Case Scenario for
EBP: Rapid Response Teams).
In this scenario, a staff nurse,
let’s call herRebeccaR., noted
that patients on hermedical–
surgical unit had a high acuity
level thatmay have led to an in-
crease in cardiac arrests and in the
number of patients transferred
to the ICU.Of thepatientswho
had a cardiac arrest, four died.
Rebecca sharedwith her nurse
manager a recently published
study onhow the use of a rapid
response teamresulted in reduced
in-hospital cardiac arrests andun-
planned admissions to the critical
Asking the Clinical Question: A Key Step in
Evidence-Based Practice
A successful search strategy starts with a well-formulated question.
This is the third article in a series from the Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation’s Center
for the Advancement of Evidence-Based Practice. Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach to the
delivery of health care that integrates the best evidence from studies and patient care data with clinician expertise and
patient preferences and values. When delivered in a context of caring and in a supportive organizational culture, the
highest quality of care and best patient outcomes can be achieved.
The purpose of this series is to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to implement EBP consistently, one
step at a time. Articles will appear every two months to allow you time to incorporate information as you work toward
implementing EBP at your institution. Also, we’ve scheduled “Ask the Authors” call-ins every few months to provide a
direct line to the experts to help you resolve questions. Details about how to participate in the next call will be pub-
lished with May’s Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step.
Case Scenario for EBP: Rapid Response Teams
You’re a staff nurse on a busy medical–surgical unit. Overthe past three months, you’ve noticed that the pat
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