Cross sectional study: strength, direction of inquiry
Contents
Direction of study:
Exposure and outcome at the same time.
Strength of association:
Strength of association in cross-sectional study is weak.
Cross sectional study is popular study because:
- Easy to conduct: Readiness and easily it can conducted
- Simple: Simple in terms of design, calculation & conduct.
- Time: It can be done very quickly
- Suitable for problem identification and study cases outbreak
- Cheap: It is cheapest type of analytical study.
- It gives idea about disease prevalence.
- It can give idea or hypothesis about exposure-effect relationship
Cross sectional study is a weak analytical study because:
- We cannot come to the conclusion about disease epidemiology
- We cannot follow-up the cases
- It has very poor analytical power.
- Lack of temorality: Since exposure & outcome are measured at the same point of time, so it is not possible to establish temporality.
- Does not establish direct estimation of risk.
- Here is no incidence and no population at risk.
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