Department of Pharmacy Practice, Raabe College of Pharmacy, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio 45810, USA.
Pharmacotherapy. 2010 Oct;30(10):973-84. doi: 10.1592/phco.30.10.973.
This article is the first of a three-part series intended to enhance clinical pharmacists' understanding of methods frequently used in epidemiologic research and their applications. The basic tenets of epidemiology and uses for data derived from epidemiologic studies are given, along with a high-level overview of the differences between experimental and observational study designs. The defining characteristics of each of the observational study designs (case report or case series, ecologic, cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, nested case-control, and case-cohort) and the resultant strengths and limitations of the study designs are presented. Applications for observational studies in pharmacoepidemiology (including the case-crossover and case-time-control study designs) are discussed. Finally, points to consider when evaluating data from observational studies are addressed.
本文是一个三部分系列文章的第一篇，旨在增强临床药师对流行病学研究中常用方法及其应用的理解。文中给出了流行病学的基本原则和从流行病学研究中得出的数据的用途，以及实验性和观察性研究设计之间的差异的概述。还介绍了每种观察性研究设计（病例报告或病例系列、生态学、横断面、队列、病例对照、嵌套病例对照和病例队列）的定义特征，以及研究设计的相应优缺点。讨论了在药物流行病学中观察性研究的应用（包括病例交叉和病例时间对照研究设计）。最后，讨论了评估观察性研究数据时需要考虑的要点。
