Search concept tools
PICO and other tools for developing research questions and search concepts
A variety of tools are listed in alphabetical order that can be used to formulate your research question and identify possible search concepts for your literature search. As a rule of thumb pick the 2-4 concepts which are most simple to search for.
BeHEMoTh - identification of theories for realist synthesis questions
Be - Behaviour of interest
H - Health context (the service, policy, programme or intervention)
E - Exclusions (for reviewers to exclude non theories)
MoTh - Models or Theories
CLIP –Health service management questions
C - Client (at whom is the service aimed?)
L - Location (where is the service sited?)
I - Improvement (what do you want to find out?)
P - Professional (who is involved in providing/improving the service?)
CMO or CIMO - Realist Synthesis questions
C - Context
I - Intervention
M - Mechanism
O - Outcome
CoCoPop - Prevalence or Incidence questions
ECLIPS(E) – Health service management questions
E - Expectation (what does the search requester want the information for (the original ‘I’s)?)
C - Client Group
L - Location
I - Impact (what is the change in the service, if any, which is being looked for? What would constitute success? How is this being measured)
P - Professionals
S - Service (for which service are you looking for information? For example, outpatient services, nurse-led clinics, intermediate care.)
MIP – Medical ethics questions
M - Methodology (e.g. in-depth interviews or questionnaires)
I - Issues (e.g. Healthcare Rationing or end-of-life decision-making)
P - Participants (e.g. physicians or patients)
PCC - Scoping reviews
P - Population
C - Concept
C - Context
Peters M, Godfrey C, McInerney P, Munn Z, Tricco A, Khalil H. Chapter 11: Scoping Reviews (2020
Version). 2017
PEO - Aetiology and/or risk questions
P - Population
E - Exposure
O - Outcome
PFO - Prognostic questions
P - Population
F - Prognostic Factors (or models of interest)
O - Outcome
The Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane Methods Prognosis. 2016 [cited 7th December 2016]; Available from: http://methods.cochrane.org/prognosis/scope-our-work.
PerSPEcTiF - Qualitative reviews
Per - Perspective
S - Setting
P - Phenomenon of interest/problem
E - Environment
(C) - (optional comparison)
Ti - Time/Timings
F - Findings
PICO – Reviews of interventions for health
P - Patient or population
I - Intervention
C - Comparator
O - Outcomes
Nb add ‘S’ on end if study type is significant, a ‘C’ if context is significant or 'T' for timeframe
PIRD - Diagnostic test accuracy questions
P - Population
I - Index test
R - Reference test
D - Diagnosis of interest.
PROGRESS - Health inequality questions
P - Place of residence
R - Race/ethnicity
O - Occupation
G - Gender
R - Religion
E - Education
S - Socio-economic status
S - Social capital
SDMO - Methodology questions
S - (type of) Study
D - (type of) Data
M - (type of) Method
O -Outcomes
SPICE – Social science questions
(designed for librarian research questions)
S - Setting (Where? In what context?)
P - Perspective (For who?)
I - Intervention (Phenomenon of Interest) (What?)
C - Comparison – (What else?)
E - Evaluation (How well? What result?)
Booth A. Clear and present questions: Formulating questions for evidence based practice. Library Hi Tech. 2006; 24(3), 355-68.
SPIDER – Qualitative evidence synthesis
S - Sample
PI - Phenomenon of Interest
D - Design
E - Evaluation
R - Research type
*With thanks to Linda Mace-Michalik (The Library, Roseberry Park Hospital, TEWV NHS FT) for distributing her compilation of alternatives to the PICO framework