Statistics With Confidence by Machin, David, Altman, Douglas, Gardner, Martin, Bryant, Trevor -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Contents Dedication Title Page Copyright Contributors Source of contents Introduction Part I: Estimation and Confidence Intervals

1 Estimating with confidence 2 Confidence intervals in practice

Surveys of the use of confidence intervals in medical journals Misuse of confidence intervals Dissenting voices Comment

3 Confidence intervals rather than P values

Summary Introduction Presentation of study results: limitations of P values Presentation of study results: confidence intervals Sample sizes and confidence intervals Confidence intervals and statistical significance Suggested mode of presentation Conclusion Appendix 1: Standard deviation and standard error Appendix 2: Constructing confidence intervals

4 Means and their differences

Single sample Two samples: unpaired case Two samples: paired case Non-Normal data Comment

5 Medians and their differences

Medians and other quantiles Differences between medians Comment Technical note

6 Proportions and their differences

Single sample Two samples: unpaired case Two samples: paired case When no events are observed Software Technical note

7 Epidemiological studies

Relative risks, attributable risks and odds ratios Incidence rates, standardised ratios and rates Comment

8 Regression and correlation

Linear regression analysis Binary outcome variable—logistic regression Outcome is time to an event—Cox regression Several explanatory variables—multiple regression Correlation analysis Technical details: formulae for regression and correlation analyses

9 Time to event studies

Survival proportions Median survival time Single sample The hazard ratio Cox regression

10 Diagnostic tests

Classification into two groups Classification into more than two groups Diagnostic tests based on measurements Comparison of assessors—the kappa statistic

11 Clinical trials and meta-analyses

Randomised controlled trials Meta-analysis Software Comment

12 Confidence intervals and sample sizes

Confidence intervals and P values Sample size and hypothesis tests Sample size and confidence intervals Confidence intervals and null values Confidence intervals, power and worthwhile differences Explanation of the anomaly Proposed solutions Confidence intervals and standard sample size tables Conclusion Appendix Sample size for comparison of two independent means Sample size for comparison of two independent proportions

13 Special topics

The substitution method Exact and mid-P confidence intervals Bootstrap confidence intervals Multiple comparisons

Part II: Statistical Guidelines and Checklists

14 Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals

Introduction Methods section Results section: statistical analysis Results section: presentation of results Discussion section: interpretation Concluding remarks

15 Statistical checklists

Introduction Uses of the checklists Outline of the BMJ checklists Reporting randomised controlled trials: the CONSORT statement Checklists for other types of study

Part III: Notation, Software, and Tables

16 Notation 17 Computer software for calculating confidence intervals (CIA)

Outline of the CIA program Software updates and bug fixes

18 Tables for the calculation of confidence intervals

Index