Question

 

PHC 131

Identify which study design is applicable for studying the following health outcomes and why? Number of new cases of obesity among college students in Saudi Arabia in 2019.         – 2 marks The number of students with obesity who are physically active and the number of students with obesity who are physically inactive.                – 2 marks Give two difference between descriptive and analytic cross-sectional study.             – 1 mark

Answer 1

In my opinion, a descriptive Cross‐sectional study is what required for the topic "Number of new cases of obesity among college students in Saudi Arabia in 2019" I am saying this because first of all, we are going to evaluate the information from a population subset that is college students in Suadi Arabia at a specific point in time that is 2019. Clearly both the criteria indicates the need of a cross-sectional study. Secondly, since we are concerned about the new cases of obesity, we are going to find out the prevalence of this conditions in the given population and other traits like health behavior, student's attitudes, eating habit and knowledge. We study such data in a descriptive cross‐sectional study only.

In the second case, we have to compare and evaluate the prevalence of obesity and factors associated within two different groups of affected individual that is between students with obesity who are physically active and the students with obesity who are physically inactive. Hence we can either use an analytic cross-sectional studyor Comparative cross-sectional study.

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Two main difference between descriptive and analytic cross-sectional study are -

i. Mostly a descriptive cross-sectional study does not have prior hypotheses and are usually opportunistic study of a health condition. While on the other hand an analytic cross-sectional study are conducted to estimate and evaluate hypotheses by selection and comparison between different groups.

ii. The main objective of a cross-sectional study is to study the prevalence of a health condition in a given population while the main objcetive of an analytic cross-sectional study is to evaluate and understand the association of the health condition between different parameters.