Compendium of Study Designs Review

Dr. Pettiti lectures on Compendiums of Study Designs was helpful in understanding the different purposes of studies. She was a good presenter making the information on different study designs pertitnent and easily understood.  Dr. Pettiti included some well known “gold standard” studies to help us understand the differences. As a way to help me understand and remember the difference, I have tried to write my understanding of each of the study types:

• Descriptive studies – majority of medical studies fall in this category.

• Case – discussing a new or unusual finding about one thing
• Case Series – discussing something unusual or common several cases
• Surveillance – on going observation and monitoring over a period of time

• Observational studies

• Cross-sectional – studying two different findings at one point in time or across the same population (determines prevalence)
• Cohort – studying findings from now into a time of the future (determines incidence)
• Case-control – comparing two groups of population – one with a particular condition versus a group without the condition
• Ecologic – study of populations and epidemiology and the effects of environmental exposures.

• Experimental – applying changes to a person or randomized group of people and measuring the outcome. Also considered a randomized study.

• Quasi-Experimental – used when randomization of the group is not possible.

I attended a conference on Thursday where the presenter was giving data about risk factors for DVT, prevalence with different risk factors and new requirements coming from the government and found myself thinking of these different study types and how they came to these conclusions, what types of studies were performed, how they determined prevalence, probabilities, etc.  It's a lot of information to process but at least some of this is getting applied in my day to day work.

Posted by :  Debbie Carter