#CASE CONTROL VS RETROSPECTIVE COHORT SERIES#
For example, a physician might encounter a series of patients who all have the same disease. Due to the fact that data is collected retrospectively in a non-controlled environment, it’s not possible to make statements about causation.Īlthough you can’t make statements about causation, you can find associations and possible relationships, potentially paving the way for the more expensive, longer-term prospective study.Ī case-series is just a series of cases. Health records and employment records are used for data sources.
#CASE CONTROL VS RETROSPECTIVE COHORT DRIVERS#
This might be made up of delivery drivers and clerical workers who would not have been exposed to the glues. A cohort consisting of retired carpenters might be selected. A cohort is a defined group, like “nurses,” “10-19 year-olds,” or “college students.” Participants are chosen for a reason, rather than randomly.įor example, researchers may want to investigate whether exposure to glues commonly used in carpentry increases the risk of developing COPD. In a retrospective cohort study (also called a historic cohort study), researchers look back at a certain period of time to find a group’s exposure to the same risk factor. For example, you may benefit from getting a database expert to help you design your database.īack to Top 5. Enlist other people to help, if possible.
Carefully design the database so that you’ll be able to easily analyze your results.Decide how you’ll defend your study before you implement it.Collect as much data as possible - preferably quantitative (numerical) data.Outcomes (are you studying a specific disease outcome? An event occurrence? Something else?.The time period (how far back in time you’ll get data from).Therefore, getting the study read and/or published may be difficult. As this is a relatively weak type of study, you cannot make causal statements, although correlations are okay (see: causation vs.Retrospective studies are considered to be inferior to prospective studies, so prospective studies should always be used if there is a choice.Confounding variables are difficult or impossible to measure.Recall bias: Participants may not be able to remember if they were exposed or not.For example, if the study is inverstigating occupational lung cancer rates, information about worker’s smoking habits may not be available. Missing data: Exposure status may not be clear, because important data may not have been collected in the first place.Studies take less time, because the data is readily available (it just has to be collected and analyzed).Useful for rare diseases or unusual exposures.education, the social sciences), there are different types of possibility for studies such as a retrospective case series, which do not use controls at all.īack to Top 3. Therefore, if you look at clinical studies, medical sites, or anything to do with medicine, you’ll find the two terms are interchangeable. A historical epidemiological study without a control would be unthinkable, and perhaps even useless. That’s mostly because when dealing with diseases and conditions, you always want to have a control.
in clinical studies), “case-control” and “retrospective study” are used synonymously. Unlike most other studies, a retrospective study collects data that have been previously collected for some other reason than research (Hess, 2004). When both retrospective and prospective methods are used at the same time, the study is said to be ambi-directional. The opposite of a retrospective study is a prospective study where participants are enrolled before any of them have the disease or outcome being investigated. The goal is to find out what potential risk factors or other associations and relationships the group has in common. Researchers then look back in time, using questionnaires, medical records and other methods Basically, you just dig into the data and see what you find. In other words, all cases have already happened before the study begins. Design of Experiments > Retrospective StudyĪ retrospective study is an observational study that enrolls participants who already have a disease or condition.
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