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DNP 825 Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice?
Sample Answer for DNP 825 Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice? Included After Question
DNP 825 Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice?
Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice? Provide a description of the chosen population and the identified intervention. Provide support as to why you believe that the design you chose is the best option including the strengths and weaknesses of the design you have chosen.
A Sample Answer For the Assignment: DNP 825 Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice?
Title: DNP 825 Which epidemiological study design would you use to evaluate an intervention in your practice?
In epidemiology, researchers are interested in measuring or assessing the relationship of exposure with a disease or an outcome. As a first step, they define the hypothesis based on the research question and then decide which study design will be best suited to answer that question. How the researcher conducts the investigation is directed by the chosen study design. The study designs can be broadly classified as experimental or observational based on the approach used to assess whether exposure and an outcome are associated. In an experimental study design, researchers assign patients to intervention and control/comparison groups in an attempt to isolate the effects of the intervention. Being able to control various aspects of the experimental study design enables the researchers to identify causal links between interventions and outcomes of interest. In several instances, an experimental study design may not be feasible or suitable; observational studies are conducted in such situations. As the name indicates, observational studies involve merely observing the patients in a non-controlled environment without actually interfering or manipulating with other aspects of the study and therefore are non-experimental. The observation can be prospective, retrospective, or current, depending on the subtype of an observational study.[1]
Observational Studies
Case-Control Studies
Case-control studies are used to determine the degree of associations between various risk factors and outcomes. The factors that affect the risk of a disease are called exposures. Case-control studies can help identify beneficial or harmful exposures. As the name suggests, there are two groups of patient cases and controls in a case-control study. Cases are patients who have a particular disease, condition, or disability. Controls are those patients that do not have the disease. Typically, researchers identify appropriate representative controls for the cases that they are studying from the general population. Then they retrospectively look in the past for the possible exposures these patients might have had to a risk factor. Selecting the patients for the control group is a very critical component of research based on case-control studies. Due to the retrospective nature of the study design, case-control studies are subject to recall bias. Case-control studies are inexpensive, efficient, and often less time-consuming to conduct. This study design is especially suitable for rare diseases that have long latency periods.[2]
Case-Crossover Studies
Case-crossover studies are helpful to study triggers within an individual. When the researcher is studying a transient exposure or risk factor, the case-crossover design is useful. This is a relatively new study design where there is a case and a control component, both of which come from the same individual. Each case is self-matched by serving as its own control. Determining the control and case components period is a critical and difficult aspect of a case-crossover study.[3]
Cohort Studies
Cohort studies initially classify patients into two groups based on their exposure status. Cohorts are followed over time to see who develops the disease in the exposed and non-exposed groups. Cohort studies can be retrospective or prospective. Incidence can be directly calculated from a cohort study as you begin with exposed and unexposed patients, unlike a case-control study where you start with diseased and non-diseased patients. Relative risk is the measure of effect for a cohort study. Cohort studies are subject to very low recall bias, and multiple outcomes can be studied simultaneously. One of the disadvantages of cohort studies is that they are more prone to selection bias. Studying rare diseases and outcomes that have long follow-up periods can be very expensive and time-consuming using cohort studies.[4]
Cross-Sectional Studies
Cross-sectional studies are observational in nature and give a snapshot of the characteristics of study subjects in a single point of time. Unlike cohort studies, cross-sectional studies do not have a follow-up period and therefore are relatively simple to conduct. As the exposure status/outcome of interest information is collected in a single moment in time, often by surveys, cross-sectional study design cannot provide a cause-effect relationship and is the weakest of the observational designs. This study design is generally used to assess the prevalence of a disease in a population.[5]
Ecological Studies
Ecological studies are used when data at an individual level is unavailable, or large-scale comparisons are needed to study the population-level effect of exposures on a disease condition. Therefore, ecological study results are applicable only at the population level. The types of measures in ecological studies are aggregates of individual-level data. These studies, therefore, are subject to a type of confounding called an ecological fallacy, which occurs when relationships identified at group level data are assumed to be true for individuals. Ecological studies are generally used in public health research.[6]
Experimental Studies
Randomized Clinical Trials
Randomized clinical trials or randomized control trials (RCT) are considered the gold standard of study design. In an RCT, the researcher randomly assigns the subjects to a control group and an experimental group. Randomization in RCT avoids confounding and minimizes selection bias. This enables the researcher to have similar experimental and control groups, thereby enabling them to isolate the effect of an intervention. The experimental group gets the exposure/treatment, which can be an agent involved in causation, prevention, or treatment of a disease. The control group receives no treatment, a placebo treatment, or another standard of care treatment depending on the study’s objective. The groups are then followed prospectively to see who develops the outcome of interest. RCT’s are expensive, and researchers using this study design often face issues with the integrity of randomization due to refusals, drops outs, crossovers, and non-compliance.
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Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
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Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
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Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- Student paper example
- Citing Sources
- The Writing Center is a great resource