Narrowing Your Topic & Developing a Focused Research Question

Classic Strategy to Focus a Topic: PICO(T)

The PICO(T) approach can help specify each of the core concepts in your research topic. PICO(T) is an acronym for:

Patient problem/Population: What health issue do you want to investigate? What are the demographic characteristics of the patient population you want to study?
Example: Type II diabetes

Intervention: What intervention or treatment are you considering? Example: exercise, diet, rest, a technology, or a medication. You can be more specific here, for example, specifying the dosage of a drug.

Comparison or Control: What are you comparing the intervention or treatment to? The comparison can be another medication or perhaps no treatment at all.

Outcome: What is the desired outcome? Are you trying to eliminate or reduce adverse effects?

Type of study or Time: Occasionally, a fifth component is relevant to consider: the type of method/study. The T can also stand for time period, for example, the outcomes within the first year after commencing a treatment.

PICO(T) Template (for the clinical domain of Intervention)

In_________(P), how does _________(I) compared to _________(C) affect _______(O) within _______(T)?

Example:
In adults with type 2 diabetes (P), how does exercise (I) compared to diet (C) affect blood sugar levels (O) within the first year of implementation (T)?

Additional PICO templates can be found here.