Order DescriptionWriter, I like you to research in one “Research Database” the following:
1. Search for Significant Clinical Issue of rising numbers of new HIV diagnoses among African American male inmates in the Correctional Settings in a Research Database.
2. Reflect on your practice (my practice is a Correctional Nurse for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Jail Medical Services Bureau).
3. Formulate searchable, clinical questions in the PICO (T) format for your nursing clinical issue of rising numbers of new HIV diagnoses among African American male inmates.
EXAMPLES AND EXPLANATION IN THE NEXT FEW BULLETS BELOW:
• Use your PICO (T) elements to search for ONE research database that is relevant to your nursing clinical issue.
• The PICO (T) format is a way to develop a clinical question that lends itself to searching for evidence.
PICO (T) is an acronym for
P = Population of interest/patient;
I = Intervention of interest/indicator;
C = Comparison of interest/control;
O = Outcome of interest;
T = Time
• According to Houser (2015, p. 93), a PICO-T Question considers five determining factors of patient’s health conditions, such as following:
P – Population/patient;
I – Intervention/indicator;
C – Comparator/control;
O – Outcome;
T – Time.”
• To provide a bit more information regarding PICO (T):
P= Population you are asking the question about. This is almost always a group of patients rather than one person. There are case studies that examine one person–you may have experienced rounds where a number of disciplines gather and discuss one patient, but generally PICO-T questions are looking at a group.
I= Intervention. Here you will be applying an intervention to help with a patient condition. The interventions are nursing care/education related. Interventions that involve medication are typically medication clinical trials and these are most often run by physicians. Our focus is more on nursing care. Some questions will not involve an intervention if asking a descriptive question such as a predictive (risk factor) question or a correlational (relational) question.
C= Comparison Group. Here you compare the population to a group of patients that typically have “standard care” instead of the intervention. There are ethical issues here where patients must at least be provided care that would be given normally. Not all questions involve a comparison group.
O= Outcome. Here you are generally looking for a positive outcome. This is an improvement in the patient condition as a result of the intervention (of course it does not always work this way). If your question is descriptive, then you will be looking at what is happening and not at a change from an intervention. If risk factors are involved as in a predictive question, then the outcome can be negative such as certain lifestyle behaviors leading to disease.
T= Time again involves looking at the effects of an intervention over time. Generally nursing studies will take place over a reasonable amount of time due to time and resource considerations. I find that 6 months or a year often works. This could also apply to predictive questions where risk factors are followed over time to see if the negative outcomes appear. (i.e., high cholesterol leading to heart disease)
4. Identify the name of the database or data source, its web address (URL), and briefly describe how it is relevant to your nursing clinical issue.
A resource suggestion:
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/africanamericans/index.html