Conraceptive use Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Conraceptive use - Essay Example Over a long period these studies have turned to be more thoroughgoing and have enhanced in analytical sophistication and size. This topic has been highly debated and researched and still being studied to find out any association between the mortality and the prolonged use of oral contraceptives. However, according to the study conducted by Colditz (1994), the prolonged utilization of oral contraceptives is found to be unassociated with increased risk of mortality of women. This research results seem to be valid and there is no linkage between the use of oral contraceptives and mortality among females as the study has been conducted for a period of twelve years. Through the design selected, the researcher gathered data for 12 years to follow the impact of oral contraceptives on the health of women. The instrument utilized was questionnaire and the responses collected then were further categorized into groups. The number of participants was 166,755 females between the ages of 30 to 55 years and the data was initially collected in the year 1976 that was followed till 1988. The design chosen seems valid for conducting a study over several years but this design does have certain drawbacks. The first and foremost drawback is that it lacks randomization thus causing imbalances in characteristics of patients. Moreover the recognition of cohorts could be difficult because of the confounding variables. Since a particular sample is selected, the masking or blinding is complicated as in the given case all the respondents were registered nurses of ages between 30 to 55 years. Moreover it is always a time consuming option to perform a cohort research as in the given research it took 12 years to get the research results. However apart from the drawbacks the design provides a chance to match the subjects involved in the cohorts thus limiting the impact of confounding factors. Moreover the outcomes of such study can be standardized and