Anna Smith, Aine Skow, Joann Bodurtha, and Sanjay Kinra embark on a study to review the impacts of health IT on care processes and patient outcomes in the management of pediatric obesity. They perform control experiments, cross-sectional studies, and pre and post-test trials from 2006 to 2012 on kids receiving treatment for obesity. The authors record the effects of IT treatment to the patients’ outcomes or care procedures. Two independent researchers retrieve the data and check it for reliability, quality, and validity. This essay formulates a succinct evaluation of the study design utilized by the writers.
The design used for the research was useful in attaining the hypothesis of the authors that is assessing whether health IT has an impact on obesity management and treatment (Smith, et.al, 2013). Since the study was based on observing people for a specific span of years, it can be classified as a case-control study. The results on the patients using health IT are compared with those that are not utilizing the same methods to realize the purpose of the research. The case-control studies are commonly adopted more than cohort studies that involve a longitudinal review to develop risk factors or causal relationships.
Cohort studies are developed when health practitioners identify a new illness and want to point out the risk factors or the conditions that make people susceptible to the illness. Prospective forms of cohort designs analyze causal associations of the risk elements and the disease. It produces better outcomes compared to a retrospective study (Mann, 2003). The case-control research, on the other hand, is useful when subjects are exposed to a particular circumstance for a period until the scholars obtain the desired results. Hence, in the particular study, the case-control design was suitable to evaluate the outcomes of the exposure of patients suffering from child obesity to health IT.
References
Mann, C. J. (2003). Observational research methods. Research design II: cohort, cross sectional, and case-control studies. Emergency Medicine Journal, 20(1), 54-60.
Smith A., et.al. (2013). Health Information Technology in Screening and Treatment of Child Obesity: A Systematic Review. Pediatrics: Volume 131, Issue 3. Retrieved April 25, 2016 from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/131/3/e894.full.pdf.
