This practice question contains the following PICOT components:
Patients undergoing cardiac surgery
Improvement of patient education
Comparison: No Patient Education
Reduced post-operative complications
Patients undergoing cardiac surgery
Improvement of patient education
Comparison: No Patient Education
Reduced post-operative complications
The key search terms identified in the practice question include “cardiac surgery”, “patient education”, and “post-operative complications.” These keywords can be used to narrow down results when conducting a literature review or searching databases such as PubMed. You can also use synonyms of these terms, e.g. Heart surgery is a better alternative to cardiac surgery.
By identifying PICOT and the keywords that are associated with it, one can quickly find resources relevant to their topic of research. These resources will then allow them to make evidence-based decisions at the end of a study.