Oxford Handbook of Medical Statistics 2nd Edition

Book Preface

To practice evidence- based medicine, doctors need to critically appraise research evidence. The majority of medical research involves quantitative methods and so it is essential to be able to understand and interpret statis-tics. In addition, many doctors conduct research which requires the use of statistics throughout the research process— from design, to data collection and analysis, and to the interpretation and dissemination.

We wrote this book to help equip doctors and other healthcare pro-fessionals to critically appraise research evidence, to conduct research, and communicate the findings, or prepare for the statistics component of undergraduate and postgraduate examinations. The positive feedback we have received from friends, colleagues, and readers worldwide suggests we managed to do this and has inspired us to build upon the success of the first edition and try to make the second edition even better.

In this edition, we have tried to bridge the gap between health profes-sionals and statisticians by highlighting themes and principles common to each. Where appropriate we have introduced analytical methods from a clinician’s perspective, demonstrating how many statistical techniques mirror the approach taken by healthcare professionals in everyday prac-tice. We have continued to provide real- life clinical examples throughout the book to help demonstrate the practical use of statistics in healthcare research.

While existing designs and statistical methods tend not to change, new designs, new methods, and new approaches are constantly coming into common use and so we have updated as needed. We have added material on translational medicine, early phase trials, observational ‘real’ data, and registers/ databases, and have updated and expanded sections on reporting guidelines. We have also expanded many statistical sections such as missing data and multiple imputation, propensity scores, and analysing costs data. We have also made some amendments to aid clarity, on the basis of feed-back from readers. We hope you enjoy reading this new edition.

Content

Foreword to the first edition vii
Preface to the first edition ix
Preface to the second edition xi
Acknowledgements for the first edition xiii
Acknowledgements for the second edition xv
Symbols and abbreviations xvii
1 How to use the Oxford Handbook of  Medical Statistics 1
2 Research design 9
3 Collecting and handling data 107
4 Presenting research findings 161
5 Choosing and using statistical software for  analysing data 191
6 Summarizing data 211
7 Probability and distributions 243
8 Statistical tests 281
9 Diagnostic studies 389
10 Other statistical methods 405
11 Analysing multiple observations per subject 439
12 Analysing multiple variables per subject 465
13 Meta-analysis 529
14 Bayesian statistics 569
15 Glossary of terms 597
Index 607