Pharmacotherapy 20

Study Designs

Card 1 of 16Design Types

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How the study was built

Study Designs

Study design determines what conclusions can be drawn and how much bias threatens them.

The core split is experimental (the investigator assigns the intervention, e.g., an RCT) versus observational (the investigator only observes, e.g., cohort or case-control).

Cause and effect

Only randomized experiments can establish causation. Observational studies show association and are vulnerable to confounding.