CIAO is a framework for crafting research questions for evidence-based research in social work. CIAO stands for:
How would you describe a client similar to yours? What are the most important characteristics of your client?
What main intervention, exposure, or factor are you considering?
What is the main alternative to your intervention being considered, if any?
What are you trying to accomplish, measure, improve or affect?
PICO is a similar framework used in the health sciences. Substitute PICO for CIAO, and this video can be very helpful.
Use the following worksheet to learn more about crafting search strategies for complex searches
Creating keywords for your searches is the first step to a comprehensive search strategy.
From each of our CIAO aspects, we can brainstorm keywords and synonyms (other terms authors might be using) to use in our search. See the example below.
Example CIAO construction of a research question
Client | Women who have been diagnosed with substance abuse disorder (SUD) |
Intervention | Partial hospitalization addiction recovery programs |
Alternative | Outpatient addiction recovery programs |
Outcome | Prevalence of relapse |
CIAO-Constructed Final Question
Do women who have been diagnosed with substance abuse disorder (client) that engage in partial hospitalization addiction recovery programs (intervention) have lower instances of relapse (outcome) when compared with women who engage in outpatient addition recovery programs (alternative intervention)?
Example of Search Keywords Using CIAO
CIAO | Aspect | Keywords |
C | Women who have SUD |
Women - femmes, females, womxn SUD - "Substance Use Disorder," addiction, "substance abuse," "drug abuse," etc |
I | Partial hospitalization addiction recovery programs |
"Partial hospitalization programs" - PHP, "partial day hospitalization," "inpatient programs" "Addiction recovery" - rehabilitation, rehab, "substance abuse recovery," etc |
A | Outpatient addiction recovery programs |
"Outpatient recovery programs" - "outpatient programs," "intensive outpatient programs," etc "Addiction recovery" - rehabilitation, rehab, "substance abuse recovery," etc |
O | Relapse | Relapse - recidivism, lapse, return to use, etc |
These sources come directly from your CIAO class assignment (Module 12 of Research Methods 1):
"Identify two articles in the literature addressing the research question. Start your search with the curated sources (list below). Describe how the two articles you identified fit your CIAO framework."