PICO(T) Questions and an Evidence-Based Approach – Diabetic Complications

Evidence-based approaches in chronic care have been lauded for their effectiveness in optimizing clinical outcomes and improving patient experiences. These approaches utilize the best available evidence to inform clinical decision-making and best practices in managing these conditions. The PICOT framework maintains significance in implementing these approaches in practice. This framework helps identify a health issue in management and guides the search for evidence that addresses the issue. It forms the groundwork for exploring scientific resources that form part of best practices in comprehensive care for chronic disorders. Long-term complications of diabetes remain an area in chronic care that can be explored using this framework. This paper analyses long-term complications of diabetes as a healthcare issue through the PICOT framework and identifies and analyzes sources that relate to diabetic complications.

Definition of a Practice Issue to be Explored Using the PICOT Framework

Diabetic complications remain a global concern, having been implicated in significant morbidity and mortality. Long-term complications of diabetes present a particular challenge to diabetic management due to their high potential to cause deterioration in the quality of life of individuals and even death. Microvascular complications are the most common causes of diabetic blindness, chronic kidney disease, and diabetic foot. These presentation causes significant functional deficits among people with diabetes and fetche considerable healthcare costs. Macrovascular complications such as stroke are more severe and have been implicated in significant mortalities (Albarakat & Guzu, 2019). The severity and consequence of these complications warrant their address.

The PICOT framework identifies specific issues within management that can be addressed effectively using best practices found in the literature. This framework will guide internet searches for evidence as it outlines care areas that need addressed. Specific concerns in the comprehensive care of long-term complications are fragmented approaches in care or poor care coordination. In this case, a PICOT formatted question will be: In diabetic patients with long-term complications of the disease presenting to the clinic (P), do care coordination and collaborative paradigms (I) confer any therapeutic benefit compared to fragmented approaches (C) in minimizing long term complications of diabetes (O) within 12 months (T) of home-based management. This PICOT question will give insight into best management practices in diabetic care that reduce the likelihood of developing diabetic complications. The interventions proposed in the questions may considerably improve the outcomes of patients with diabetes.