The 6th in the series of GRADE guidelines (Rating the quality of evidence – imprecision) provides a highly informative supplement to the content under section 3, above. This achieved through highlighting how the optimal information size criterion for sample size ought to be used alongside that of a clinical decision threshold when using 95% confidence intervals to evaluate the weight of evidence in favour of (or against) an intervention.
Often things go awry in the reporting of findings and conclusions arising from statistical hypothesis testing. The e-book How to Report Statistics in Medicine (Lang and Allen, 2006) may help in this area.
If you are registered with the University of Edinburgh, you can consult the electronic version of this book via the University’s library discovery system, DiscoverEd.
Here are some reference details:
- Title:
How to report statistics in medicine annotated guidelines for authors, editors, and reviewers
- Author: Thomas A. Lang (Thomas Allen)
- Michelle Secic 1967-
- Publisher: New York : American College of Physicians
- Publication Date: 2006], ©2006
- Edition: Second edition.
- Format: 1 online resource (xxii, 490 pages) : illustrations.
- Language: English.
Also, a key principle for consideration is being much more tentative about the interpretation of findings, that is, not over-stating them, particularly where there is a modest sample size (see the BMJ reference Statistics notes: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (Altman and Bland, 1995)).
5. Observational studies
Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE)
Reference: The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies. (von Elm E, et al. 2007)
The REporting of studies Conducted using Observational Routinely-collected health Data (RECORD) Statement
The routine collection of health data is not governed by a study protocol. There is, or example, a lack of opportunity to control the timings when measurements are record and the consistency of these timings across different patients. This has potential implications for assessing the quality of the study design and for interpretation of the study findings. Such studies therefore invite special consideration.
THE GRADE GUIDELINES by Margaret MacDougall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
