non experimental research design Flashcards
Describe Descriptive data
Describe characteristics, behaviors, attitudes, even a movement pattern.
Documents the nature of a phenomenon through the systematic collection of data.
Provides a snapshot view of a single sample measured once.
Involves measurement and description of a sample several times over an extended period.
The researchers observe not manipulate.
Retrospective
Prospective
Retrospective descriptive research
To document the past.
It may be used to evaluate the present against the past.
Or maybe used to make decisions in the present based on information from the past.
Archival data (medical records, voter registration rosters, newspapers and magazines, telephone directories, television news programs, and a host of other sources) are used.
The data must be systematically analyzed by the researcher for its relevance.
What exactly is descriptive prospective examples and what is its purpose
Enables the researcher to control the data that are collected for the purpose of describing phenomenon.
Observation
Examination
Interview
Questionnaire
Observation: to observe gait pattern of patients with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS).
Examination: to examine sensorial changes in patients with RRMS.
Interview: to get information regarding perceived risks to independent living of RRMS.
Questionnaire: to study fatigue with a survey in patients with RRMS.
Describe a cross sectional research study and its purpose
To describe the typical developmental characteristics of different groups of individuals at various stages of life.
It is used to document health status at a single point in time for each participant within the study.
Describing the walking ability among groups of infants, young adults, and elderly adults.
Fitness levels of top executives in a particular company are collected between January and March of 1 year.
What about a longitudal study
to study a pattern of change over time (e.g., describe the development of a person or group’s gait).
Normative Research describe
to describe quantitative characteristics of a particular population and how much these characteristics vary (e.g., record body weight and head circumference percentiles of infants from 0 to 8 years).
Normative measurements of grip and pinch strengths of 21st century Korean population.
Health-related quality of life in Brazil: normative data for the SF-36 in a general population sample in the south of the country.
Prospective analysis of relationships
The study of the relationship of between residual limb length and temporal-spatial gait characteristics for patients with transtibial amputation.
Does Correlation cause Causation???
If you go to a hospital, you will probably see a large number of sick people admitted. There may be a relationship or association between illness and hospitals. They seem go to together. The larger the hospital, the more sick people there are. However, larger hospitals do not cause greater illness.
Describe analysis of differences
To determine whether groups or treatments are different in some reliable way.
Retrospective
Prospective
Experimentally: Under control of the researcher
Nonexperimentally: Ex post facto (after the fact) or causal-comperative.
Case control studies
The researchers start with “effects” and look for “causes”.
First, individuals with the effect of interest (the cases) are identified.
Second, appropriately matched individuals without the effect of interest (the controls) are identified.
Third, all participants (cases and controls) are evaluated.
Finally, statistical analysis are conducted to determine whether individuals with the presumed causes have a higher risk of being a case than a control.
Examine people with lung cancer (the effect) and determine how many of them were smokers as opposed to those who did not smoke.
Comparing hazards in the home of the fallers with hip fx and non-fallers.
Determine the causes of death from trauma with comparing people who died from trauma and people died from other preexisting conditions using hospital records.
Cohort studies
CENTRAL OBESITY MEASUREMENTS PREDICT METABOLIC SYNDROME IN A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY OF POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN.
Joint effects of smoking and sedentary lifestyle on lung function in african americans: the jackson heart study cohort.
A cohort is a group of people who share a common characteristic or experience within a defined period (e.g., are born, are exposed to a drug or vaccine or pollutant, or undergo a certain medical procedure). Thus a group of people who were born on a day or in a particular period, say 1948, form a birth cohort. The comparison group may be the general population from which the cohort is drawn, or it may be another cohort of persons thought to have had little or no exposure to the substance under investigation, but otherwise similar. Alternatively, subgroups within the cohort may be compared with each other.
Basically say study a group teens throughout teenage years who smoke
compare to those who don’t smoke and compare the differences
describe a meta analysis
Refers to methods that focus on contrasting and combining results from different studies, in the hope of identifying patterns among study results, sources of disagreement among those results, or other interesting relationships that may come to light in the context of multiple studies
gives a thorough summary of several studies that have been done on the same topic,
provides the reader with extensive information on whether an effect exists and what size that effect has
Describe the benefits of case studies and the setbacks
Is a good means of bringing attention to an unusual case, exploring possible mechanisms of a phenomenon, and generating hypotheses.
Low cost, minimal ethical considerations (you are not withholding or manipulating treatment), and convenience (data usually have been collected during the course of treatment).
There is limited scientific merit (no ability to draw conclusions of causality).
It is more exploratory rather than confirmatory.
Immediate reconstruction of a nonreplantable thumb amputation by great toe transfer.
Is used to describe the characteristics of several persons.
The evidence is strengthened with several examples (cases) that support the observation.
In 1817, Parkinson provided a report of six persons with what he described as “shaking palsy”. Patients who fit this description later were referred to as having Parkinson’s disease.
Describe qualitative research
To achieve a deep understanding of a clinical matter.
One may describe the experiences of a person or group, such as patient’s perceptions during recovery from an illness or about a health care issue.
It is still has to be concerned with objective, unbiased, and believable methods of collecting data.
Quanitative asks how???
Qualitative asks???
Asks “how many” Experimentations or correlational designs Tests and measures The goal is deductive Linear and open looped
Qualitative
Asks “what”
Observation and interviews
The goal is to develop a theory
Iterative and closed looped
