RIMS Nursing Officer - 2022
Nursing Research & Statistics
Easy
Which of the following comes under descriptive study?
Appeared in: RIMS Nursing Officer - 2022
Explanation
- Descriptive studies focus on describing the distribution of a disease or health condition by person, place, and time.
- They are designed to generate hypotheses by answering questions like 'Who?', 'What?', 'Where?', and 'When?'.
- A case report is a detailed account of an individual patient's experience, making it a fundamental type of descriptive study used to document unusual clinical findings.
Why Other Options Were Wrong
- Option B: A clinical trial is an experimental (or interventional) study, not a descriptive one. Researchers actively introduce an intervention to test its effects.
- Option C: A cohort study is an analytical observational study. It follows a group over time to compare outcomes between exposed and unexposed individuals to test hypotheses about causation.
- Option D: A case-control study is an analytical observational study. It compares people with a disease (cases) to those without (controls) by looking back in time to identify potential risk factors.
Related Visual
Clinical Relevance
- Nursing practice connection: This is primarily an exam-oriented knowledge point with limited direct bedside application, so retain Classification of Epidemiological Study Designs as background academic context rather than a clinical decision trigger.
- Nurses are often the first to notice unusual symptoms, adverse drug reactions, or novel disease presentations. Documenting these findings in a detailed case report is a critical contribution to medical knowledge.
- Case reports are fundamental to pharmacovigilance, the science of detecting, assessing, and preventing adverse effects of medicines. A single, well-documented case report can trigger investigations that lead to changes in drug labeling or practice.
- What if? If a nurse observes several patients with similar, unusual symptoms after starting a new medication, this moves beyond a single case report towards a case series (another descriptive study). A case series provides stronger evidence and is more likely to trigger a formal public health investigation.
How to Approach the Question
- First, identify the key term in the question: 'descriptive study'.
- Recall the main categories of epidemiological research: Descriptive, Analytical, and Experimental.
- Define the purpose of each category. Descriptive studies describe 'what is'. Analytical studies test 'why'. Experimental studies test interventions.
- Evaluate each option against the definition of a descriptive study.
- A 'Case report' describes a single patient's situation, which fits the 'describe' function.
- A 'Clinical trial' tests an intervention, so it's experimental.
Concept Tested & Keywords
- Concept Tested: Classification of Epidemiological Study Designs
- Stem keywords: descriptive study, epidemiology
- Lead-in keywords: Which of the following
- Negative lead-in flag: false
Question ID
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Reference Book
E6 Parks TextBook of Preventive & Social Medicine part 1 — Subpart A (pp 26-201 of 604) p. 55-57
E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) p. 2846-2848
E6 Nursing Fundamentals Potter Perry 12e Part 1 p. 82-84
Practise the full RIMS Nursing Officer - 2022
Attempt every question from this paper in a timed mock, then review the full solution for each one.
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