Considering Both Statistical and Clinical Significance

Statistical significance and clinical significance.

A sample size planning approach that considers both statistical significance and clinical significance

BACKGROUND The CONSORT statement requires clinical trials to report confidence intervals, which help to assess the precision and clinical importance of the treatment effect. Conventional sample size calculations for clinical trials, however, only consider issues of statistical significance (that is, significance level and power). METHOD A more consistent approach is proposed whereby sample si...

The clinical significance of statistical significance.

Modern clinical trials provide the evidence for most therapeutic advances, and that evidence, expressed in a statistical format, is used to draw inferences about a population from the study's results. Clinician judgment translates these inferences for best individual patient care, but many clinicians struggle with the statistical interpretation of trial results. This review provides a clinical ...

Statistical and clinical significance, and how to use confidence intervals to help interpret both.

Statistical significance is a statement about the likelihood of findings being due to chance. Classical significance testing, with its reliance on p values, can only provide a dichotomous result - statistically significant, or not. Limiting interpretation of research results to p values means that researchers may either overestimate or underestimate the meaning of their results. Very often the ...

Statistical Significance versus Clinical Significance in Clinical Trials