What's going to happen to me doctor?

Question 1

What is prognosis?

Answer 1

A predictor of disease outcome based on the disease itself and the specific lifestyle factors of a patient such as their nutrition, age and Fhx.

Question 2

What are prognostic factors?

Answer 2

Characteristics which can be used to determine prognosis.

Question 3

How is prognosis assessed temporally?

Answer 3

The disease outcome over a period of time.

Question 4

How is prognosis assessed qualitatively?

Answer 4

Which disease outcomes could happen.

Question 5

How is prognosis assessed quantitatively?

Answer 5

Measuring the likelihood of the disease outcome.

Question 6

What studies are used for prognosis?

Answer 6

Cohort studies and case control.

Question 7

What is the purpose of cohort studies?

Answer 7

Provides evidence of association- not cause.

Question 8

What is the purpose of case control?

Answer 8

Retrospective to determine association between disease outcome and risk factor.

Question 9

What is a prospective cohort study?

Answer 9

Used to measure associations between risk factors and disease outcomes. It follows a group of similar people that are identified by exposure with different factors like class over time to determine how a factor affects disease outcome.

Question 10

What is a historical cohort study?

Answer 10

Used to measure associations between risk factors and disease outcomes from past for incidence of disease. Identifies individuals based on exposure.

Question 11

What is a good case-control study?

Answer 11

Comparable group, avoids recall bias

Question 12

What is a good cohort study?

Answer 12

There must be follow up data to avoid recall bias and must be long enough to identify disease outcome. Measurement tool is important. Researchers should be blind to patient’s characteristics.

Question 13

What are the strengths of a cohort study?

Answer 13

Find multiple outcomes, studying disease incidence over long time period, reduced risk of survivor bias, used to calculate incidence rate.

Question 14

What are the weaknesses of a cohort study?

Answer 14

Possible selection bias of participants, attrition bias, expensive and time consuming.

Question 15

What are the strengths of a case control study?

Answer 15

Efficient use of resources, multiple risk factors, investigating diseases with long development time and finding useful estimates like relative risk.

Question 16

What are the weakenesses of a case control study?

Answer 16

Selection bias, recall bias, difficult to choose appropriate control group, if frequency of exposure is low, the study may be inefficient.

Question 17

What is survival curve?

Answer 17

Probability that a subject will survive over a period of time. Limited by period of time measured.

Question 18

How can cohort studies be interpreted for prognosis?

Answer 18

Determine association with outcome which increases the likelihood of the poor mortality.

Question 19

How can case control studies be interpreted for prognosis?

Answer 19

Determine risk factors which increase the disease outcome.