PECO is a variant of PICO which looks at Exposure instead of Intervention. It is also used in formulating clinical questions.
| Population |
- How is your population defined? (e.g. age, gender, ethnic group …)
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| Exposure |
- What has your population been deliberately or inadvertently exposed to?
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| Comparison |
- What are you comparing this with, e.g. a different level of exposure? (It’s ok to leave this one blank if you are not doing a comparison)
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| Outcome(s) |
- Which result(s) are you focusing on or measuring?
- What are you hoping to improve?
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Other variables that can be added to this PICO framework are:
| Duration |
- What is the follow up schedule?
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| Timeframe |
- What is the duration of the exposure?
- What is the follow up schedule?
- Is this a longitudinal study?
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| Results |
- Which reported results are you looking for in the literature on your topic?
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Variant frameworks:
- PECODR = Population, Exposure, Comparison, Outcome, Duration, Results
- PECOT = Population, Exposure, Comparison, Outcome, Timeframe
- PEO = Population, Exposure, Outcome