Primer of Biostatistics

Abstract

This book provides an introduction to the fundamental methods of biostatistics in the context of clinical practice and is appropriate for medical students and research workers in the medical sciences. It discusses how biostatistics is used to provide numerical evidence supporting the conclusions of clinical studies and how to evaluate the use of statistical methods in the medical literature.Topics include summarization of data, comparison of groups (the one-way analysis of variance and the two-sample t-test), and the analysis of rates and proportions using the chi-square test. A practical discussion of “the meaning of P” and “the meaning of not significant” is included, with illustrations of the concepts of power, error types, and sample size implications. The computation and interpretation of confidence intervals are illustrated with examples that will catch the reader's interest. Regression and correlation are covered, as are paired observations illustrated by the paired t-test and McNemar's test for categorical data. Selected non-parametric techniques are included.