Descriptive studies: what they can and cannot do.

By D. Grimes, K. F. Schulz. The Lancet, 2002

595 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Oncology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/da4b09ff78b64b929b9d499c04482adb3b6222b2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. Michael Campbell
2. C. Cooper
3. Gillian Lancaster

In Statistics and Probability

1. Gillian Lancaster
2. Michael Campbell
3. C. Cooper
4. Lehana Thabane

Citations in the corpus

• The clinical case report: a review of its merits and limitations (2014, background): “For instance, a case series consisting of several similar cases in a short period can make up the case-group for a case–control study [47].”
• Methodological quality and synthesis of case series and case reports (2018, background): “A case report is the smallest publishable unit in the literature, whereas case series report aggregates individual cases in one publication.(4) The median number of patients in articles with ‘case series’ in the title was found to be seven (range 1–6432).”
• What is a pilot or feasibility study? A review of current practice and editorial policy (2010, background): “Some authors suggest that analysis of pilot studies should mainly be descriptive,[3,6] as hypothesis testing requires a powered sample size which is usually not available in pilot studies.”