{"id":359152,"date":"2022-05-24T14:39:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T21:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/?p=359152"},"modified":"2022-05-24T14:39:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T21:39:13","slug":"retrospective-study-what-it-is-how-to-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/retrospective-study-what-it-is-how-to-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospective Study: What it is &#038; How to Do it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">retrospective study<\/span>, existing data are examined to identify risk factors for particular diseases. Interpretations are limited as it is impossible to go back in time and gather the missing information. Let&#8217;s talk about that.<\/p>\n<h2><b>What is a Retrospective Study?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A retrospective study is an analysis that compares two groups of individuals. A case group and a control group. Both groups are similar, but the case group has a key factor that is being studied or investigated that the control group does not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It brings up key differences in individuals or groups of individuals based on some events\/incidences. It\u2019s a psychological approach to pinpoint key differences in individuals that are alike but differ slightly based on certain characteristics.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the importance of a Retrospective Study?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This study is greatly important in many aspects, be it personal development, socio-economic welfare, or professional development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This study is also important to fixate certain characteristics within individuals by considering historical data and making rational decisions. In large organizations, this becomes very important because organizations deal with large groups of clients with almost (but not completely) alike behaviors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the stage where retrospection comes into play to understand differences and similarities among clients and act accordingly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Advantages and disadvantages of a Retrospective Study<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar to other studies, there are benefits and drawbacks to retrospective studies. Researchers must critically evaluate the method that is used and carefully interpret the results of retrospective studies before putting them to practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Advantages:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researches have control of the number of participants in the case group and control group.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Typically less expensive to conduct in comparison to other methods.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Timeline of a retrospective study is quicker to complete<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disadvantages:<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poor control over exposure factor<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If research is not thorough, there could be missing history\/background and or information.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If researchers are not careful, selection and recall bias can affect the results\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>How to conduct a Retrospective Study<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are certain ways to conduct a retrospective study. Most of them collect vast historical data and make sense of it statistically. Another way is by considering 2 groups with similar attributes and then conducting <\/span><b>Surveys <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(That\u2019s where QuestionPro shines!) to find out differing characteristics. In general, there are 2 parts to it:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prospective Study<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\">\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Retrospective Study<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the sake of this article, let\u2019s just stick to the retrospective study. An organization can take many surveys and collect data from them. This data can then be processed to make important business decisions. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This will help the organization understand its clients and help provide more viable products and services that would actually make a difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Retrospective Study Examples<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These studies aim to study a situation, condition, event, or phenomenon that has already happened. This study is often used in the medical industry to study different medical conditions and illnesses. Using participants who have an existing condition compared to a group that does not have that particular condition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Conclusion:\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In conclusion, this study deals with enhancing minor differences amongst similar groups. These differences are brought up by studying and statistically sourcing historical data collected by various means. One such method to collect data and perform this study is by taking surveys. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QuestionPro has a rich arsenal of tools and products to bring the most out of such studies. These tools collect useful insights and help in procuring pinpoint differences within the most similar groups of individuals and further accelerating the study.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"square-cta secondary-lined-cta\" href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/a\/showEntry.do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>CREATE FREE ACCOUNT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Authors<\/strong>: Siddharth Kulkarni &amp; Jenny Huang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a retrospective study, existing data are examined to identify risk factors for particular diseases. Interpretations are limited as it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":359230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Retrospective Study: What it is &amp; How to Do it | QuestionPro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A retrospective study is an analysis that compares two groups of individuals. 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