How to Clean a Cochrane-Style PICO Question
PICO cleaners invent RCTs. Split P I C O from the paste. Not medical advice.
The matching generator is the Cochrane-Style PICO Question Cleaner (No Invented Trials) prompt. Browse related cards in the PromptDig library (Browse more prompts). When a filled run survives, share the version you actually use (Share a prompt).
Banner not medical advice
Clean a research question into Cochrane-style PICO elements from pasted text. Never invent trials, DOIs, or effect sizes. Start by filling Inputs, not by asking the model to remember last week's run. If a field is blank, write NONE or NOT IN INPUTS and leave it blank through Generate. The card is built so the model cannot honestly invent a number, owner, URL, or command that you did not paste.
Paste these fields before you hit run:
Pasted question or protocol scrap: [Text]
Outcomes I may keep (or NONE): [Outcomes]
Words I must not use: [Banned]
What I must never invent: [Never]
Output format: [Format]
Language: [Lang]
Banner I require: [Banner or Not medical advice]
That inventory is the honesty ledger. Anything that does not appear there is forbidden in the draft. If you catch yourself adding a nice-to-have after the run, you are no longer using the card. You are ghostwriting. Put the extra fact in Inputs and run again.
Fill PICO only from text
Generate is numbered on purpose. Do not skip a step because the first paragraph looked done. The early steps exist to stop later prose from smuggling claims.
Walk the Generate list in order:
- Honesty ledger: Text nouns, Outcomes, Banner, Lang. Forbidden: inventing RCTs, inventing DOIs.
- Banner.
- PICO table from Text only. Missing cells: NOT IN INPUTS.
- Cleaned research question sentence.
- Exclusion notes from Text only.
- Refuse: inventing forest plots, inventing risk ratios.
- Search string stub only if terms appear in Text; else SEARCH TERMS NOT IN INPUTS.
- Compliance pass: Banned and Never. Format as Format.
If a step asks for a version lock, quote the version from Inputs in the output. If a step asks for a refuse list, keep the refuse list in the published artifact, not in a sidebar you delete. Reviewers should see what the model was not allowed to do.
Mark missing time as NOT IN INPUTS
Most failures are the same shape: a missing field gets a confident fill. A conversion rate appears. A Gradle task appears. A flash point appears. A caption appears on a job that asked for slide text only. Your review is to search the draft for numbers, names, and commands, then grep Inputs. No match means cut.
Honor the constraints as hard stops, not vibes:
- PICO from Text only. No invented trials.
- Not medical advice.
- No emojis.
When the card says not legal advice, not certification, not an exam dump, or not a caption engine, that sentence belongs at the top of the output. Deleting it to look more finished is how you inherit risk.
Refuse invented effect sizes
Finish with the compliance pass the prompt already asks for. Quote the banned-word hits. Cut them. Print character counts when the job has a cap. Print word counts when the job has a budget. List gaps as gaps. Five missing facts are more useful than one smooth paragraph.
Tags on the card (cochrane pico cleaner, pico question from paste, no invented trials) are a reminder of the job shape, not an invitation to wander into a neighboring cluster. If you need a different surface, open a different PromptDig card rather than stretching this one.
Fill the card, then run
Replace every bracket. Run on ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Read the ledger first, then the artifact. If the model invents a commit, KPI, DOI, PEL, bid, or logo, discard the run. Tighten Inputs. Run again. Share the filled card that survived, not the first draft that sounded done.