retrospective
Meaning of retrospective: Retrospective describes research or review that looks backward at events, records, or outcomes that have already occurred.
Definition of retrospective
Retrospective describes an approach that looks backward at events, records, or outcomes that have already taken place, rather than following people forward from a starting point into the future. In clinical research, a retrospective study typically examines existing medical records or data collected in the past to identify patterns, such as how a group of patients with a given condition responded to a treatment they already received.
Retrospective studies are often faster and less costly to conduct than studies that follow participants forward in time, since the outcomes have already occurred and the data already exists in some form. However, because the information was usually not collected with the specific research question in mind, retrospective studies can be more susceptible to missing data, inconsistent recordkeeping, and certain forms of bias.
Retrospective analysis is distinguished from a prospective approach, which defines its questions and methods in advance and then follows participants forward to observe what happens.
Used in a sentence
A retrospective review of hospital records was conducted to compare outcomes between the two surgical approaches.
Good to know
A retrospective study can suggest an association between a treatment and an outcome, but its backward looking design generally makes it weaker evidence of cause and effect than a well conducted prospective study.
Word origin
Where “retrospective” comes from
Formed from Latin retro-, meaning backward, combined with specere, meaning to look or view.