Open AccessStudy designs: Part 2 – Descriptive studies
Author(s) -
Rakesh Aggarwal,
Priya Ranganathan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
perspectives in clinical research
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2229-5488
pISSN - 2229-3485
DOI - 10.4103/picr.picr_154_18
Subject(s) - observational study , descriptive research , research design , descriptive statistics , management science , clinical study design , computer science , statistics , psychology , medicine , mathematics , engineering , pathology , clinical trial
One of the first steps in planning a research study is the choice of study design. The available study designs are divided broadly into two types - observational and interventional. Of the various observational study designs, the descriptive design is the simplest. It allows the researcher to study and describe the distribution of one or more variables, without regard to any causal or other hypotheses. This article discusses the subtypes of descriptive study design, and their strengths and limitations.