PICO Paper

The PICO paper is a collaborative effort between students to create a research based paper integrating concepts about evidence based practice and “answering the clinical question”. Select a topic of interest related to nursing practice. Sign up for your group here.

Craft a clinical question comparing two nursing interventions for the care of the patient. Format a “PICO” and conduct a literature review. Present a summary of the findings and conclusion made based on the evidence. Five pages maximum in the body of the paper (not including title and reference pages). This is a group paper, so it is critical that you identify roles early, make decisions about the division of work, and write cohesively to create a final written APA paper.

There are three parts to this assignment:

1. Students will create a group contract, determining their strengths and weaknesses of individual team members. The group will determine roles, and best methods of completing the assignment. The students will address best methods for communication between members and strategies for having a “working” document shared between members. Although I do not expect there will be issues, the group contract should address plans for intervention if an individual group member is not contributing as planned or is lacking effective communication. Due Oct. 1. Required, no points associated; -5 if not complete.
2. The group should complete an annotated bibliography by October 15. This is to assist you in getting organized for your writing, and to offer an opportunity for skills in writing a concise summary from research articles. See rubric below.
   

   Expectation	Total points	Points Earned
   Read and reviewed two (3) professional journal articles in reference to your selected topic; articles or link posted in group file exchange or google doc (be sure to share with instructor) so all group members can review the articles for final paper	1
   The three articles were current (2009 or later) and specifically related to your topic of choice.	1
   Summarize the main points of each article including A statement of the purpose of the article Main topics being discussed and measures used (if article is a research study versus review of literature) The article/author position on topic The contribution that this article makes to our current knowledge about the topic.	4
   Annotation is well written	2
   Includes an APA-formatted reference.	2
   Total points	10

3. You will collectively complete a APA formatted written final paper. This paper should flow well, and demonstrate what your findings are, with a final conclusion. The paper should be no longer than 5 pages in the body of the paper, i.e. excluding title and reference pages.

Example PICO:

Clinical Question: For emergency department adult patients (because adlts and children are so different they cannot really be included in the same study), are tympanic thermometers as accurate as oral thermometers?

P (Population) ED Adult Patients

I (Intervention of interest) Tympanic temperature assessment

C (Comparison intervention) Oral thermometer temperature assessment

O (Outcome) Accurate measurement of temperature (Measured by comparing the two, to see if the tympanic temperature is as accurate as the oral)