Cross-sectional study
Research Methods
Definition. A cross-sectional study measures exposures and outcomes at a single point in time in a defined population.
Explanation
It is the most common design in health management surveys, for example on burnout among emergency department workers (Hamdan et al., 2026). Because exposure and outcome are measured together, cross-sectional studies cannot establish temporal order or causality.
Related concepts
Common method bias Cohort study Causal inference Confounding
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References
Hamdan, M., Erdem, R., Toraman, A., Ceylan, H., Rashed, A., & Jawabreh, B. (2026). Burnout among emergency department healthcare workers in Palestine and Türkiye: a cross-sectional comparative study. BMC Emergency Medicine.
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Cross-sectional study. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/cross-sectional-study/