Now I just want to say that sometimes you'll see people calling this
picots or picos.
And I mentioned sort of off to the side some people put settingiIn here.
Well they also put timing, and that's the T and the S.
So timing might include how long is the minimum follow up
you want in your systematic review.
For example, we're looking at education of teenagers for
prevention of sexually transmitted disease.
What is our minimum duration of follow-up that we think makes sense for
looking to see whether this education was effective?
I've already said that I don't think two weeks makes much sense.
Knowing that kids have changed their behavior at two weeks in time.
That's fine, but that doesn't mean that's what they're going to continue to do.
So I would say if I'm looking at condom use after an educational program.
That I would want to probably follow those kids at least a year.
Maybe I'd look at them at monthly intervals, and ask them what
they're doing, but I'd probably want to follow them at least a year.
Similarly, if I'm looking at the effects of patching
in preschoolers who have amblyopia.
I'd probably want to look at whether their amblyopia's reverted
after they stopped the patching.
Or whether this is a longterm fix that we can expect.
I mentioned also, we might be interested just in looking at people.
For example, in a community living situation.
If we're talking about falls, we might not be interested in falls in nursing homes.
We might only be interested in falls of people living on their own.
We might be interested only in inpatients or only in outpatients.
So often people say that PICO, PICO or PECO isn't enough.
That we need to add timing and setting, and it's fine if you want to do that.
We tend to just use PICO without the T and S and incorporate that somewhere else.
We don't forget about it entirely, but if you want to make it PICOTS,
that's fine with me.