Abstract
Background: The application of statistics in reported research in trauma and orthopaedic surgery has become ever more important and complex. Despite the extensive use of statistical analysis, it is still a subject which is often not conceptually well understood, resulting in clear methodological flaws and inadequate reporting in many papers. Methods. A detailed statistical survey sampled 100 representative orthopaedic papers using a validated questionnaire that assessed the quality of the trial design and statistical analysis methods. Results: The survey found evidence of failings in study design, statistical methodology and presentation of the results. Overall, in 17% (95% confidence interval; 10-26%) of the studies investigated the conclusions were not clearly justified by the results, in 39% (30-49%) of studies a different analysis should have been undertaken and in 17% (10-26%) a different analysis could have made a difference to the overall conclusions. Conclusion: It is only by an improved dialogue between statistician, clinician, reviewer and journal editor that the failings in design methodology and analysis highlighted by this survey can be addressed.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 60 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | BMC Medical Research Methodology |
Volume | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 19 Jun 2012 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
© 2012 Parsons et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Keywords
- Experimental Unit
- Statistical Review
- Medical Discipline
- Orthopaedic Research
- Orthopaedic Literature
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology
- Health Informatics