Study Design Types

• Reports the prevelance of a feature of interest or frequencies of variables
• Observational
• Quantitative 
• Descriptive

Appropriate research questions for surveys

• What is the problem?
• What is the magnitude of the problem?
• Who is affected?
• How do people behave?
• What do they think / what are their attitudes?

• Analytical
• Quantitative
• Observational
• Population analysis - compares populations rather than individuals

Appropriate research questions for comparative surveys:

• What is the magnitude of the problem?
• What is the disease prevalence?
• What is the association between disease outcome and demographic profile for the population?

• Quantitative
• Analytical
• Observational
• Random sample drawn to represent population
• Shows association and relationships between variables

Appropriate research questions for comparative surveys:

• What is the magnitude of the problem?
• What is the disease prevalence?
• What are the risk factors?
• Are risk factors associated with outcomes?

• Groups are assembled where differences are known
• Compares group who exibit an effect with a group who do not
• Identifies possible causes of exposure
• Quantitative
• Analytical
• Observational

Appropriate research questions for cohort studies

• What is the strength of association between risk factor & outcome?
• Does exposure to a suspected risk-factor differ between cases & controls?
• What might be the possible cause of a rare disease?

• Longitudinal 
• Looks a people without a disease who have different levels of exposure for a disease
• Regular check-ins to see if disease has emerged/ any effects
• Association between variables can be measured using odds ratio and risk ratio
• Quantitative
• Analytical
• Observational

Appropriate research questions for cohort studies

• What is the relative risk?
• What is the prevalence?
• What is the association between risk factor & outcome?
• What is the true estimate of incidence?
• What is the inferred causeof the disease?
• What s the temporal association between suspected cause and outcome?
• How does changing diet affect the progression of a disease (survival study)?

• Quantitative
• Analytical
• Observational
• An analysis focusing on time duration until an event such as death or infection occurs.
• It is usually fundamental to many cohort and randomised controlled trials.

• Starts with a cohort study where a base line is developed
• Disease cases are then selected for the case control study
• The controls are drawn from the cohort population who did not develop the disease
• Analytical
• Quantitative
• Observational

• Analytical
• Quantitative
• Observational
• A common comparison sample that is a random selection of the source population (cohort), and multiple case groups, which allows efficient testing of multiple health outcomes

• Quantitative
• Experimental/ intervention
• Randomly assigns participants to control and intervention groups
• Patients, Nurses, and Investigators are 'blind'

Appropriate research questions for RCTs

• What is the effect of the therapy, intervention?
• What are the causes?

• Framework Approach - Staged to analyse qual data
• Ethnographic Study - Detailed and systematic observations of cultural groups
• Grounded Theory Study - Prioritise phenomena and resulting theory as grounded in the data collected
• Phenomenological Study - Detailed descriptions of events and how they impacted the individual
• Phenomenographic Study - Focuses on ways individuals experience events
• Participatory Research Study - Participants test their own interventions
• Case Study - Rich, detailed examination of groups of people or an organisation

• Analysis of data and research already published
• Gathers all evidence available
• Focuses on a specific research question
• Show research effectivness
• Prevents unncessary repeating of research