Nursing Students' Guide to Evidence Based Research: Asking Research Questions
Getting Started with Nursing Research
Have you ever searched Google only to be overwhelmed or disappointed by the results? Health information found online may not be fact- or evidence-based. There's a lot more to nursing research than Googling!
This guide will help you improve your nursing research skills by helping you:
- develop a focused research question
- search nursing and allied health databases for articles, reports and other publications to gather evidence
- evaluate evidence for credibility and usefulness
- apply evidence to clinical practice
First Steps
If your research is taking you into unfamiliar territory (it usually does), one of the best ways to gain a working knowledge of your topic is to check out introductory articles and chapters of reference sources, like special encyclopedias and handbooks. Check out the Reference Tools tab for a selection of our print and online reference sources for nursing.
Planning Your Research
One of the keys to effective database searching is to ask focused, specific questions. You also need to choose your search terms carefully, and combine them in ways that give you control over your search results. The PICO model, described below, provides a framework for constructing questions and search strategies for clinical research questions.
Research Process Overview
The research process can be broken down into four simple steps:
| ASK | Develop a focused research question by using PICO. |
|---|---|
| SEARCH | Use the tabs at the top of this guide to search for evidence from articles, books and more. |
| EVALUATE | Look closely at the evidence. Is it authoritative? Will it be useful? |
| APPLY | Apply the evidence to nursing practice. |
Using PICO
- Evidence-Based Practice tools From Northern Arizona University, templates and suggestions for using PICO to develop good clinical research questions.
Alternatives to PICO
Not all research questions lend themselves to using PICO. Here are some alternative models.
PICO: How Nurses Plan Their Research
Organizing the issue into four simple parts helps to identify the main concepts.
In the box to the right you will find a great example of PICO in action 
PICO in Action
There are several variations of the PICO method. In the video below, the T in PICOT refers to TIME.
PICO Example
Scenario: A 64 year old obese male who has tried many ways to lose weight presents with a newspaper article about ‘fat-blazer’ (chitosan). He asks for your advice. Begin by identifying the main concepts: obese, adult, chitosan, weight loss
Your research question might be: In obese patients, does chitosan, compared to a placebo, decrease weight?
Use these keywords when searching nursing databases such as CINAHL.