Introduction to medical statistics
This material was originally produced to support a course for students taking undergraduate and masters courses in dentistry. It is intended as an introduction to statistics for clinicians; the aims and objectives of the course and a short bibliography are given on the course outline page.
A glossary of some statistical terms is available. Finally, there are a few example exam questions provided for students to practice on.
The fifteen units of the course
- Sampling a population
- Types of data
- Describing data: summary statistics and graphical techniques
- Estimation and confidence intervals
- Statistical inference: testing hypotheses and interpreting P values
- Contingency tables: odds ratios and the χ2 test
- Non-parametric tests
- Multiple comparisons
- Correlation and regression
- Diagnostic consistency: how do we measure agreement?
- Sample size calculations
- Bias and confounding
- Repeated measures
- Causation
- Critical appraisal of published research
