{"id":107,"date":"2010-06-01T17:25:54","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T16:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc-archimedes\/?p=107"},"modified":"2010-06-01T17:31:38","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T16:31:38","slug":"what-about-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/2010\/06\/01\/what-about-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"What about benefits?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s worth taking some time to return to basics every now and again, and one thing that continues to befuddle medics the world over is the issue of ‘statistical significance’. <\/p>\n

Take your average trial, say 3% saline vs. placebo for bronchiolitis admissions. You can take the proportion of kids who end up in hospital in each group, and then ask the questions “is this difference just a chance finding, or not?” You – or someone else – then does a statistical test. The test then gives you an answer, which tells you is how likely the result you found is to be due to chance: the p-value.<\/p>\n

So what? If p = 0.05, does this mean that 3% saline works? Well, it means that the results, if coming from unbiased samples, are likely to be this or even more different in only 1 in 20 cases. (If the p=0.01, then this would be by fluke in only 1 in 100 cases.) You’ll note the p-value never tells you something works, or not, it just tells you about chance. By convention, we have decided that if it’s “true” if p<0.05. But this is a convenience and a fascinating set of debates surround this<\/a> value.<\/p>\n

If you think that’s good enough, then take the leap of faith, and prescribe.\u00a0 If you’re looking for certainty, then get a different job. If instead of just saying ‘Does it work?’ you want to know ‘How well does it work?’ then you don’t want statistical significance – you want an estimate of effect: more about that in another blog.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgment: Fisher photo from Zephyrus<\/a><\/p>\n

ps – Monthly emails explaining statistics from here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s worth taking some time to return to basics every now and again, and one thing that continues to befuddle medics the world over is the issue of ‘statistical significance’. […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archimedes","category-critical-appraisal-note"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat about benefits? - ADC Online Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/2010\/06\/01\/what-about-benefits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What about benefits? - ADC Online Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s worth taking some time to return to basics every now and again, and one thing that continues to befuddle medics the world over is the issue of ‘statistical significance’. 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