WEEK 7 - CLINICAL TRIALS

Question 1

How are quantitative data stored in a data set?

Question 2

How do descriptive statistics summarise the characteristics of a sample?

Question 3

What assumptions apply to the results?

Answer 3

• The assumption their groups are comparable (Equality)
• The shape of the data (Normality)
• The nature and direction of causality (Linearity)

Question 4

How sure can we be that results from the sample will generalise to the wider population?

Question 5

How is the clinical importance of treatment effects decided?

Question 6

How are treatment effects summarised from multiple studies of interventions in a systematic review?

Question 7

What is Descriptive statistics

Answer 7

-Refer only to the sample, not attempting to generalise beyond the sample

• Results in research reports begin with descriptive statistics and move towards inferential statistics
• are about a sample and conclusions can be drawn accurately only about that sample

Question 8

What is inferential statistics

Answer 8

Statistics that attempt to go beyond the sample and help us to infer what happens in the wider population

• statistics explore whether data from samples can be applied to general relevant population

Question 9

What is Central Tendency

Answer 9

• Refers to the mid_way point between the highest and the lowest of a sample of scores on a continuous variable

Question 10

What is confidence intervals

Answer 10

• ) shows level of uncertainty in applying sample mean to populations
• A CI tells us exactly how uncertain we are – the narrower the CI the better for precision re the population

Question 11

What is clinically important

Question 11

What is a forest plot?

Answer 11

• records the mean weights for each group, the difference scores and the group sizes numerically in a table