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Most problems in studies are due to poor design (not due to poor analysis)
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this lecture, you will be able to:
•Explain your choice of the appropriate study design to achieve the stated objectives
Types of study designs
•Studies can be classified as either:
• Observational and
• Experimental
Types of Study Designs
Meta-
analyses
Randomised
Controlled, Field and
Community trials
gth
Cohort Study
en
Str
Case control
Cross-sectional
Descriptive
This type is used to assess the burden of a particular disease in a defined
population.
Analytic
to investigate the association between a risk factor and a health outcome.
Risk factors and outcome are measured simultaneously, and therefore it may be
difficult to determine whether the exposure proceeded or followed the disease
(cause and effect).
Strengths
•Difficult to determine whether the outcome followed exposure in time or exposure resulted
from the outcome.
•Not suitable for studying rare diseases or diseases with a short duration.
•As cross-sectional studies measure prevalent rather than incident cases, the data will
always reflect determinants of survival as well as aetiology1.
•Susceptible to bias due to low response and misclassification due to recall bias.
Analytic study designs
Case Control Study
•Case-control studies start with the identification of a group of cases
(individuals with a particular health outcome) in a given population and a
group of controls (individuals without the health outcome) to be included in
the study.
Time
End of study Follow up Start of study
What is odds ratio?
•Case-control studies are retrospective, and cases are identified at the beginning of the study;
therefore there is no long follow up period (as compared to cohort studies).
•The temporal sequence between exposure and disease may be difficult to determine.
Cohort Study
•The cohort studies consist of two groups based on exposure status.
Exposed vs unexposed.
•The incidence of disease in exposed is compared to incidence in
unexposed group.
•All study participants must be free of the outcome under investigation
and
Time
Start of study Follow up End of study
What is risk ratio?
• Risk ratio (also known as a relative risk) tells us how much more likely
the outcome is among those exposed compared to those unexposed
and is calculated as follows:
Practical 2:
• A study enrolled 100 smokers and 100 non smokers. They followed for
20 years to see if they develop lung cancer.
Smoking Yes No
Yes 30 70
No 10 90
Strengths
•Multiple outcomes can be measured for any one exposure.
•Exposure is measured before the onset of disease (in prospective cohort studies).
•Good for measuring rare exposures, for example among different occupations.
•Prone to confounding.
*They decide the nature of the treatment (that is, what is going to happen to the subjects of the study), to whom it is to be applied, and to what extent.
Characteristics of Experimental Research
• A RCT provides the best type of epidemiological study from which to draw conclusions on causality.
•Requires complex design and analysis if unit of allocation is not the individual.
Good meta-analyses aim for complete coverage of all relevant studies, look for
the presence of heterogeneity, and explore the robustness of the main findings
using sensitivity analysis.
11.3 Study Design
•Justify why you have chosen this study design.
•Mention the advantage of this study design and how it is related to your
study topic
An analytical cross sectional survey will be conducted to assess the prevalence of social anxiety
and obsessive compulsive disorder among multiple sclerosis patients and investigate the
association between the EDSS disability scores and the presence of social anxiety and obsessive
compulsive disorders. This study design is most suitable for our objectives and the initial
assessment of the problem.
Thanks