This document provides an example of how to develop a search strategy from a PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) question. It shows the PICO components for the question "Does vitamin C help treat the common cold?" It then identifies the relevant Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms and keywords to use for searching each concept in bibliographic databases or other search tools. Bringing the concept searches together with Boolean operators would target articles related to the original PICO question.
1. From PICO to Search: Example
○
1
P Common cold
○
2
Concept 1:
I Vitamin C Common Cold
C None MeSH:
Common Cold
O None
Keywords
common colds OR
catarrh
Concept 2:
Vitamin C
AND
MeSH:
Ascorbic Acid
Keywords
vitamin c OR
acid ascorbic
○
3
Concept 1 Search
Concept 2 Search
Target
Franklin Sayre, UBC Library, franklin.sayre@ubc.ca
2. From PICO to Search: Worksheet
○
1 P ○
2 Concept 1:
I _____________
C MeSH:
O _________________
_________________
OR
Keywords:
Concept 2: _________________
_____________ AND _________________
MeSH:
_________________
_________________
Keywords: OR
_________________
_________________
○
3
Concept 1 Search
Concept 2 Search
Target
Franklin Sayre, UBC Library, franklin.sayre@ubc.ca