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Clinical Study Types - for Librarians

Cross-Sectional Studies: Definitions

PubMed's MeSH term: Cross-sectional studies: Studies in which the presence or absence of disease or other health-related variables are determined in each member of the study population or in a representative sample at one particular time. This contrasts with LONGITUDINAL STUDIES which are followed over a period of time.

Surveys and questionnaires are often considered cross-sectional studies.

Epidemiology of Study Design: Cross-sectional studies are observational in nature and give a snapshot of the characteristics of study subjects in a single point of time. Unlike cohort studies, cross-sectional studies do not have a follow-up period and therefore are relatively simple to conduct. As the exposure status/outcome of interest information is collected in a single moment in time, often by surveys, cross-sectional study design cannot provide a cause-effect relationship and is the weakest of the observational designs. This study design is generally used to assess the prevalence of a disease in a population.

Examples

Example in an elementary school classroom:  If we asked "How many of you brought lunch today, and how many of you plan on buying lunch today?" that is a cross-sectional study.

Examples in the literature:

Where This MeSH Term Can Be Found in the MeSH 'Tree'

The MeSH term is found under Epidemiological Studies: 

Consider Asking the Researcher

As surveys are a type of cross-sectional research, you might want to ask the researcher if they would like you to search on surveys OR questionnaires (and the associated MeSH terms and other keywords)