What happens if my question doesn't fit into PICO?
Answer
Don't worry if your question doesn't fit neatly into PICO, PICO(T), or any other question formulation framework such as SPICES, PIE, PCC, or others. These are meant to be helpful! These frameworks exist to help provide structure for complex research questions. PICO best suits questions that are clinically focused, are therapy/intervention related, and usually suit systematic review questions best. Not all questions have a comparator of interest, or a time factor (as seen in PICOT). For example, "What are the cultural and psychosocial factors that influence a nurse's ability to provide culturally competent care to a diverse patient population in a long-term care facility?" does not fit neatly into PICO, but it is still an excellent and valid question.
Ask yourself what you are truly interested in. Most questions do contain a population or patient of interest, and some sort of intervention. Start with these and determine if there are any additional factors that are interesting and important to you to include.
Concept mapping is a general approach to forming a search question that can be useful if one of the frameworks above are not helpful. You can learn more about concept mapping on this guide, or at the bottom of this guide.