Patients diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) develop depression with episode
ID: 3174001 • Letter: P
Question
Patients diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) develop depression with episodes of anxiety, which makes a negative impact on their quality of life. Even though there is a relationship between AF diagnosis and patients’ episodes of anxiety and quality of life found from previous studies, there is not enough research study done on the reason why this happens. Nonetheless, depression is reported as the strongest independent predictor to impair quality of life in these patients.
To use a retrospective cohort design in which we first locate a group of subjects with AF and identify which are suffering from depression and which are not. Here a diseased group is determined first and is retrospectively assessed for exposure status. Then, we consider another group of subjects which are in some sense comparable but who do not have AF and identify who are suffering from depression and who are not.
For the given scenario we have to select the two groups of the patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and patients without atrial fibrillation (AF). Here, we have to select the two separate samples of patients and then we have to select the patients from these samples who develop depression and who not develop depression. This means we need to use the two stage sampling.
How will your sample size affect your results and the application of your results to practice?
Explanation / Answer
If the sample size is larger, the results are more reliable, but obtaining and working on larger sample costs time and money. So, there is always a tradeoff between the relaibly of the results and the cost of the work done ( in terms of time and money) based mainly on the sample size of the data considered,