VETS5016 - Evidence-based veterinary medicine and systematic review: Step 2: Clinical question

To help formulate a focused research question, the PICO method has been created. PICO is a mnemonic for Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome. 

The first step is to define your clinical question using the PICO method:

• Population - the patient or the relevant group being studied
• Intervention - the change being imposed on the population; eg - a diagnostic test, a treatment, an activity, a policy, an instruction, etc
• Comparison - the control or the alternative to the intervention - it may be a similar treatment or it may be a placebo or no intervention
• Outcome - the consequence of the intervention, which will measure the effectiveness

A well-written PICO will guide the systematic review by defining the search strategy and identifying the studies to be included.

Developing your question.

A question for a systematic review has to be searchable and therefore specific. Planning your search will provide guidance on search terms.

Clinical question:

In __[population]__ , does __[intervention]__ compared to __[comparison]__ result in __[outcome]__ ?

Question:
Are dogs more prone to obesity on a canned meat or fresh meat diet?

Clinical question:
In dogs, does a canned meat diet compared to a fresh meat diet result in obesity ?