Premium
Publications from multicentre clinical trials: Statistical techniques and accessibility to the reader
Author(s) -
Marsh Marta J.,
Hawkins Barbara S.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.4780132305
Subject(s) - clinical trial , contingency table , statistical analysis , medical physics , computer science , descriptive statistics , statistical hypothesis testing , statistical power , medical literature , medicine , statistics , mathematics , machine learning , pathology
Articles from multicentre randomized clinical trials were analysed by methods adapted from Emerson and Colditz and Juzych et al. to compare the frequency with which different statistical methods are used by clinical trials investigators with the frequency used by other researchers, and to determine how much statistical knowledge is required to interpret the statistical treatment of data from clinical trials. We observed differences between the frequency of usage of statistical methods and the accessibility of the clinical trials publications and those of all medical research articles published by specific journals. Clinical trials publications are less accessible than others in medical journals to the reader who knows only descriptive statistics, t ‐tests, contingency tables, power calculations, and life table methods. Many more statistical methods must be known by a reader to understand fully publications regarding treatment group comparisons for the primary outcomes of interest from clinical trials.