The 5 A Framework assumes you have first ASSESSED a patient and come up with a clinical question. Next, you are ready to ASK your question.

We use an acronym called PICO to be sure we have included all important factors to consider when forming a good searchable question. 

PICO is a tool that clarifies and focuses questions that arise during a patient assessment, and helps to identify and organize the key aspects of a complex patient presentation.

Those key components include:

• P = Patient or Population
• I = Intervention (Are you looking to diagnose? Treat? Learn about a prognosis?)
• C = Comparison or Control - not a part of all questions (Is there a control? Placebo? Gold Standard?)
• O = Outcome (What do you hope to accomplish? Better treatment? Decreased mortality?

<< Back 5A Framework