ERA-EDTA Registry, Department of Medical Informatics, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
CNR-IFC, Center of Clinical Physiology, Clinical Epidemiology of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Nephrology (Carlton). 2021 Sep;26(9):701-707. doi: 10.1111/nep.13875. Epub 2021 Mar 25.
Epidemiological studies often aim to investigate the causal contribution of a risk factor to a disease or other outcome. In etiological research, one is usually interested in the (biological) mechanism(s) underlying the studied relationship. Inappropriate conduct of an etiological study may have major implications for the correctness of the results and interpretation of the findings. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to describe step by step how etiological research should be carried out, together with its common pitfalls. These steps involve finding and formulating a well-defined etiological research question, choosing an appropriate study design including a suitable comparison group, adequate modelling, and adequate reporting and interpretation of the results.
流行病学研究通常旨在调查风险因素对疾病或其他结果的因果贡献。在病因学研究中，人们通常对所研究关系背后的（生物学）机制感兴趣。病因学研究的不当实施可能对结果的正确性和研究结果的解释产生重大影响。因此，在本文中，我们旨在逐步描述如何进行病因学研究，以及常见的陷阱。这些步骤包括发现和制定一个明确的病因学研究问题，选择合适的研究设计，包括合适的对照组，适当的建模，以及对结果的适当报告和解释。
