| Titre : | Descriptive studies : what they can and cannot do. (2002) |
| Auteurs : | David-A GRIMES ; Kenneth-F SCHULZ |
| Type de document : | Article |
| Dans : | Lancet (The) (vol. 359, n° 9301, 2002) |
| Pagination : | 145-149 |
| Langues: | Anglais |
| Mots-clés : | Statistique ; Classification ; Utilisation ; Epidémiologie ; Evaluation ; Homme ; Méthodologie |
| Résumé : | [BDSP. Notice produite par INIST-CNRS pkqJ4R0x. Diffusion soumise à autorisation]. Descriptive studies often represent the first scientific toe in the water In new areas of inquiry. A fundamental element of descriptive reporting is a clear, specific, and measurable definition of the disease or condition in question. Like newspapers, good descriptive reporting answers the five basic W questions : who, what, why, when, where . .. and a sixth : so what ? Case reports, case-series reports, cross-sectional studies, and surveillance studies deal with Individuals, whereas ecological correlational studies examine populations. The case report is the least-publishable unit In medical literature. Case-series reports aggregate individual cases in one publication. Clustering of unusual cases in a short period often heralds a new epidemic, as happened with AIDS. Cross-sectional (prevalence) studies describe the health of populations. Surveillance can be thought of as watchfulness over a community ; feedback to those who need to know is an integral component of surveillance. Ecological correlational studies look for associations between exposures and outcomes In populations-eg, per capita cigarette sales and rates of coronary artery disease-rather than in Individuals. Three important uses of descriptive studies include trend analysis, health-care planning, and hypothesis generation. A frequent error in reports of descriptive studies is overstepping the data : studies without a comparison group allow no Inferences to be drawn about associations, causal or otherwise. Hypotheses about causation from descriptive studies are often tested in rigorous analytical studies. |
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