NBME Answers : ashli777's page

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Why isn't this a cohort study?

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drdoom This is a cohort study! (Since it involves splitting people into "groups"; group = cohort.) But the stem asks what "best describes" the design. So, yes, it's a cohort study but a more precise ("more specific") description is Open-label. In other words, "Open-label clinical trial" is a type of cohort study, and, in this case, "Open-label" is a more precise description of what is described in the stem. +7

drdoom For a more technical explanation of "Cohort studies", see the definition from the National Library of Medicine: https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/record/ui?ui=D015331 +1

angelaq11 It is a cohort, just as @drdoom said, but it isn't an "Observational" one. +3

pg32 It's actually not a cohort study, imo. In a cohort you find people with an exposure and see if they develop some outcome. In this experiment, people were RANDOMLY ASSIGNED to the different exposures. That doesn't happen in cohorts. +10

pg32 It may be a cohort in that these people are in groups, but for the purposes of Step 1, I don't think we will deal with typical "Cohort" studies in which participants are randomly assigned. +2

ashli777 you don't administer an intervention in a cohort study, you just observe what happens. it is an observational study. +

drdoom ^ i retract my earlier subcomment! thanks @ashli777 and @pg32 — you guys are right that cohorts do not intervene! in two senses: (1) there is no treatment intervention and (2) there is no “assignment” intervention (either randomly or by selection; that is, investigators do not DESIGN or DETERMINE how groups are formed, even if that means random determination by computer). +2