After coming up with our original PICOT question, and finding reliable resources, my group was able to narrow down our topic a bit more. Originally, our question was “What is the relationship between music and patient outcomes in the ICU?”, which was a good start, but it was still a bit vague. Researching the original question helped us to more narrowly define “patient outcomes” and we decided to focus on anxiety levels in ventilated patients. Our revised question is “What is the relationship between music and anxiety levels in critically ill ventilated patients in the ICU?” This was a difficult process, as our searches came up with multiple potential outcome topics. However, it seemed like the majority of the primary resources we found discussed playing music for ventilated ICU patients and monitoring more self-reported measures like pain and anxiety. We were quickly able to agree on this change, given the number of pertinent journal articles we found. I think what was helpful for our process as a group was our collective ability to connect to this subject, and share personal stories relating to our question. We are all very devoted to and excited about our chosen topic!
