Question

Which option identifies the type of study described in the following scenario?

A group of 50 men are being studied. Of those men, 25 have heart disease and 25 do not. The groups of men are as similar as possible in every other way: race, diet, socioeconomic status, marital status, etc. The researchers are trying to determine what caused the 25 men to develop heart disease when 25 other men did not. They ask the men a lot of questions about their life and experiences to try to determine what could have caused these differences.

Prospective cohort study
Randomized controlled trial
Historical cohort study
Case study

Answer 1

The type of study described in the scenario is a case-control study, which is retrospective and compares individuals with a condition to similar individuals without it to find associations with potential causes.

Step-by-step explanation:

The scenario described is a case-control study. This type of study compares a group of individuals with a condition (in this case, heart disease) to a similar group without that condition to identify factors that may contribute to the presence of the condition. The 50 men are divided into cases (25 men with heart disease) and controls (25 without heart disease), and researchers are investigating potential causes by looking into the men's life experiences and habits.

Case-control studies are inherently retrospective, meaning they look back at participants' histories to find associations between past behaviors or exposures and current health status. Participants are asked to recall their past, and the data collected are then compared between the cases and controls to identify potential risk factors or causes for the condition.

Despite being less costly than prospective cohort studies, case-control studies have the limitation of relying on the accuracy of participants' memories and honesty, which can potentially lead to recall bias.