When your research methodology is qualitative rather than quantitative, the PEO question format may be helpful to try. An example of a PEO question might be:
What are the lived experiences (O) of individuals diagnosed with early-onset dementia (P) in navigating their professional careers (E)?
PEO is an excellent way to format a research question when you are considering if an exposure to something impacts a population. PEO is most often utilized for qualitative research studies, where the data collected is not numerical in nature and the goal is to learn more about a population's experience or more broadly about outcomes. PEO can be used to gain an understanding of what may seem similar to an intervention in PICO, but some researchers consider building the PEO question to be less complex than PICO since you are only considering population>exposure>outcome.
