A look at the potential association between PICOT framing of a research question and the quality of reporting of analgesia RCTs

Table 2 Frequency of description of each PICOT element

Element of the research question	All articles (n = 23)
Element of the research question	Count	95% CI*
P: Patients	21	(18, 23)
I: Invention	23	(15, 23)
C: Comparator	19	(15, 22)
O: Outcome	12	(7, 17)
T: Timeframe	4	(1, 8)
Complete PICOT	2	(0, 5)

CI: Confidence Interval.
*For item that has non-zero event, the 95% CI was approximated by assuming the number of events followed a Binomial distribution; for item that has zero event, the 95% CI was approximated by the rule of three [44].

ISSN: 1471-2253