Using and Understanding Medical Statistics

Book excerpt: Abstract: A textbook is intended to serve as a study guide for medical students for becoming well-informed regarding medical statistics for subsequent use in medical research. The theme of the text is to describe the statistical methodology frequently found in published medical research, particularly in the area of chronic diseases. Included are: basic concepts; text of significance; various statistical tests and tables; the use and comparison of survival curves; normally distributed data and their analysis; linear regression models for medical data; other regression models; the quality of data; clinical trial designs; and considerations of sample size. Specific applications to epidemiological studies also are described. Numerous tables, illustrations, and examples are given throughout the text.