Use of data (2)

Question 1

Give 3 medical factors affecting the uptake of care

Answer 1

New symptoms,
Visible symptoms,
Increasing severity

Question 2

Give 6 non medical factors affecting the uptake of care

Answer 2

Crisis, 
Peer pressure, 
Patient beliefs, 
Social class, 
Age, 
Gender, 
Media

Question 3

What are the 3 main aims of epidemiology

Answer 3

Description,
Explanation and
Disease control

Question 4

Regarding Epidemiology:

Define description, explanation and disease control

Answer 4

Description - to describe the amount and distribution of disease in human populations.

Explanation - to explain the natural history and identify aetiological factors for disease. (Usually by combining epidemiological data with data from other disciplines eg biochemistry).

Disease control - to provide the basis on which preventive measures, public health practices and therapeutic strategies can be developed, implemented, monitored and evaluated for the purposes of disease control

Question 5

What does epidemiology compare?

Answer 5

Compares groups in order to detect differences pointing to aetiological clues,
the scope for prevention,
and the identification of high risk groups in society.

Question 6

Define incidence

Answer 6

Number of new cases of a disease in a population in a specified period of time

Question 7

Define prevalence

Answer 7

Number of people in a population with a specific disease at a single point in time or in a defined period of time

Question 8

What is the relative risk

Answer 8

Measure of the strength of an association between a suspected risk factor and the disease under study.

Incidence of disease in exposed group divided by incidence of disease in unexposed group.

Question 9

Give some examples of sources of epidemiological data

Answer 9

mortality data, 
hospital activity stats, 
cancer stats, 
accident stats, 
drug misuse databases

Question 10

Define health literacy

Answer 10

People having the knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence to use health information:

To be active partners in their care,

To navigate health and social care systems

Question 11

What is the CHADS2 score?

Answer 11

Estimates the risk of stroke in patients with AF

Question 12

What are NOACs?

Answer 12

Newer drugs not requiring regular blood test monitoring - expensive and not easily reversed

Question 13

What score is used to measure major bleeding risk?

Answer 13

HAS-BLED

Question 14

What are descriptive studies?

Answer 14

They attempt to describe the amount and distribution of a disease in a given population.

Question 15

What framework do descriptive studies follow?

Answer 15

Time, place, person

Question 16

When are descriptive studies useful?

Answer 16

Assessing the effectiveness of screening programmes, Generating hypotheses about disease aetiology

Question 17

What is a cross sectional study? Give some examples.

Answer 17

In cross sectional studies observations are made at a single point in time.

Disease frequency,
Survey,
Prevalence study

Question 18

What is a case control study?

Answer 18

Two groups of people are compared - a group of individuals who have the disease of interest, and a group of individuals who do not

Question 19

What is a cohort study?

Answer 19

Baseline data on exposure are collected from a group of people who do not have the disease.

The group is then followed through time until a sufficient number have developed the disease.

Question 20

What is the definitive method of assessing any new treatment in medicine?

Answer 20

Randomised controlled trial

Question 21

What factors should be considered when interpreting results?

Answer 21

Standardisation,
Standardised mortality ratio, 
Quality of data, 
Case definition, 
Coding
Classification

Question 22

What is standardisation?

Answer 22

A set of techniques used to remove the effects of Differences in Age or other confounding variables, when comparing two or more populations.

Question 23

What is the purpose of case definition?

Answer 23

To decide whether an individual has the condition of interest or not.

Question 24

What is bias?

Answer 24

Any trend in the collection, analysis, interpretation, publication or review of data

that can lead to conclusions that are systematically different from the truth.

Question 25

Give 4 types of bias

Answer 25

• Selection bias,
• Information bias,
• Follow up bias,
• Systematic error

Question 26

What is selection bias?

Answer 26

Occurs when the study sample is not truly representative of the whole study population from which conclusions are to be drawn.

Question 27

What is information bias?

Answer 27

Arises from systematic errors in measuring exposure or disease

Question 28

What is follow up bias?

Answer 28

Arises when one group of subjects is followed up more assiduously than another to measure disease incidence or other relevant outcome

Question 29

What is systematic error?

Answer 29

A form of measurement bias where there is a tendency for measurements to always fall on one side of the true value - may be because an instrument is calibrated wrongly.

Question 30

Define a confounding factor?

Answer 30

A factor which is associated independently with both the disease and with the exposure under investigation,
–> distorts the relationship between the exposure and disease.