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Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research

Difference between “Clinical Significance and Statistical Significance” should be kept in mind while interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research. This fact is already known to many but again pointed out here as philosophy of “statistical hypothesis testing” is sometime...

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Autor principal: Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371560/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22707861
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0975-9476.96518
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author Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B.
author_facet Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B.
author_sort Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B.
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description Difference between “Clinical Significance and Statistical Significance” should be kept in mind while interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research. This fact is already known to many but again pointed out here as philosophy of “statistical hypothesis testing” is sometimes unnecessarily criticized mainly due to failure in considering such distinction. Randomized controlled trials are also wrongly criticized similarly. Some scientific method may not be applicable in some peculiar/particular situation does not mean that the method is useless. Also remember that “statistical hypothesis testing” is not for decision making and the field of “decision analysis” is very much an integral part of science of statistics. It is not correct to say that “confidence intervals have nothing to do with confidence” unless one understands meaning of the word “confidence” as used in context of confidence interval. Interpretation of the results of every study should always consider all possible alternative explanations like chance, bias, and confounding. Statistical tests in inferential statistics are, in general, designed to answer the question “How likely is the difference found in random sample(s) is due to chance” and therefore limitation of relying only on statistical significance in making clinical decisions should be avoided.
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spelling pubmed-33715602012-06-15 Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B. J Ayurveda Integr Med General Article Difference between “Clinical Significance and Statistical Significance” should be kept in mind while interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research. This fact is already known to many but again pointed out here as philosophy of “statistical hypothesis testing” is sometimes unnecessarily criticized mainly due to failure in considering such distinction. Randomized controlled trials are also wrongly criticized similarly. Some scientific method may not be applicable in some peculiar/particular situation does not mean that the method is useless. Also remember that “statistical hypothesis testing” is not for decision making and the field of “decision analysis” is very much an integral part of science of statistics. It is not correct to say that “confidence intervals have nothing to do with confidence” unless one understands meaning of the word “confidence” as used in context of confidence interval. Interpretation of the results of every study should always consider all possible alternative explanations like chance, bias, and confounding. Statistical tests in inferential statistics are, in general, designed to answer the question “How likely is the difference found in random sample(s) is due to chance” and therefore limitation of relying only on statistical significance in making clinical decisions should be avoided. Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2012 /pmc/articles/PMC3371560/ /pubmed/22707861 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0975-9476.96518 Text en Copyright: © Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle General Article
Sarmukaddam, Sanjeev B.
Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title_full Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title_fullStr Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title_full_unstemmed Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title_short Interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
title_sort interpreting “statistical hypothesis testing” results in clinical research
topic General Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371560/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22707861
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0975-9476.96518
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