Evidence shows that they are strengths and weaknesses of cohort studies. Cohort studies are an effective and robust method of establishing cause and effect. As they are large, researchers can draw confident conclusions regarding the link between risk factors and disease. In many cases, because participants are often free of disease at the commencement of the study, cohort studies are particularly useful at identifying the timelines over which certain behaviors can contribute to disease. However, the nature of cohort studies can cause challenges. Collecting prospective data on thousands of participants over many years (and sometimes decades) is complex, time-consuming, and expensive. Participants may drop out, increasing the risk of bias; equally, it is possible that the behavior of participants may alter because they are aware that they are part of a study cohort. The analysis of data from these large-scale studies is also complex, with large numbers of confounding variables making it difficult to link cause and effect. Where cohort (or ‘cohort-like’) studies link to a specific intervention (as in the case of the Lansperger et al study into nursing practitioner-led critical care), the lack of randomization to different arms of the study makes the approach less robust than randomized controlled trials.
David Barrett, H. N. (2019). What is cohort studies. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Hull, Hull Hu6 7RX,UK;https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-103183.
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