IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION OF STATISTICAL TESTS IN RESEARCH'S SOFTWARE HELPING DATA COLLECTION AND PROTOCOLS ANALYSIS IN SURGERY

BACKGROUND: The use of information technology is often applied in healthcare. With regard to scientific research, the SINPE(c) - Integrated Electronic Protocols was created as a tool to support researchers, offering clinical data standardization. By the time, SINPE(c) lacked statistical tests obtained by automatic analysis. AIM: Add to SINPE(c) features for automatic realization of the main statistical methods used in medicine . METHODS: The study was divided into four topics: check the interest of users towards the implementation of the tests; search the frequency of their use in health care; carry out the implementation; and validate the results with researchers and their protocols. It was applied in a group of users of this software in their thesis in the strict sensu master and doctorate degrees in one postgraduate program in surgery. To assess the reliability of the statistics was compared the data obtained both automatically by SINPE(c) as manually held by a professional in statistics with experience with this type of study. RESULTS: There was concern for the use of automatic statistical tests, with good acceptance. The chi-square, Mann-Whitney, Fisher and t-Student were considered as tests frequently used by participants in medical studies. These methods have been implemented and thereafter approved as expected. CONCLUSION: The incorporation of the automatic SINPE(c) Statistical Analysis was shown to be reliable and equal to the manually done, validating its use as a research tool for medical research.