Statistical Software Applications and Statistical Methods Used In Community Medicine and Public Health Research Studies

Krishna P  Joshi; Deepak C  Jamadar

doi:10.5455/njcm.20210329094615

Authors

Krishna P Joshi SVS Medical College, Mahabubnagar
Deepak C Jamadar SVS Medical College, Mahabubnagar

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5455/njcm.20210329094615

Keywords:

Statistics, Community Medicine & public health, software, SPSS, ANOVA

Abstract

Background: The utilization of software in statistical methods and tools has increased very much in last two decades. The easily availability of statistical application software on internet, made easy to analyse, interpretation and conclude the study variables.

Aim and Objectives: To know the statistical software applications and various statistical methods used in the community medicine and public health research studies.

Materials & Methods: A cross sectional retrospective study, We had included online community medicine and public health journals of four years (2017 to 2020).By cluster sampling method were used and each cluster includes articles of four different year, 400 randomly selected research articles were downloaded & reviewed. The data was analysed by using SPSS version 23.

Results: 400 articles were reviewed. 317 (79.25%) were used Ms-Excel software followed by 261 (65.25%) descriptive statistics and 145(36.25%) SPSS and 143 (35.75%) applied cross sectional study design. 91 (22.75%) applied chi-square test, 77(19.25%) applied ANOVA test. 59(14.75%) t-tests. Only 41(10.25%) articles were reported with confidence intervals.

Conclusion: The current study reveals, Microsoft excels, and SPSS and R-programming were more frequently using software in the community medicine and public health, whereas descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, t-tests and non-parametric tests were commonly using statistical methods.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics accessed on 01.02.2021.

Altman DG. Statistics in medical journals. Stat Med. 1982; 1:59–71.

Altman DG. Statistics in medical journals: developments in the1980s. Stat Med. 1991; 10:1897–913.

Altman DG. Statistics in medical journals: some recent trends. Stat Med. 2000; 19:3275–89.

Baker M. 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature. 2016; 533:452-4.

Kass R, Caffo B, Davidian M, Meng X, Yu B, Reid N. Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice. PLoS Comput Biol. 2016; 12:e1004961.

Brown E, Behrmann M. Controversy in statistical analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017; 114:E3368-E3369.

Wegman EJ, Solka JL. Statistical software for today and tomorrow. 2005.

Clairfeuille T, Cloake A, Infield D, Llongueras J, Arthur C, Li Z, et al. Structural basis of α-scorpion toxin action on Nav channels. Science. 2019; 363.

Steichen J, Lin Y, Havenar Daughton C, Pecetta S, Ozorowski G, Willis J, et al. A generalized HIV vaccine design strategy for priming of broadly neutralizing antibody responses. Science. 2019.

Becattini S, Littmann E, Seok R, Amoretti L, Fontana E, Wright R, et al. Enhancing mucosal immunity by transient microbiota depletion. Nat Commun. 2020;11:4475.

Wu P, O Malley J, De Gruttola V, Liberman M. Age-Related Hearing Loss Is Dominated by Damage to Inner Ear Sensory Cells, Not the Cellular Battery That Powers Them. J Neurosci. 2020; 40:6357-6366.

Wang Q, Zhang BH. Research design and statistical methods in Chinese medical journals. JAMA. 1998; 280:283–5.

Muenchen RA: The popularity of data analysis software. 2010.

Rigby AS, Armstrong GK, Campbell MJ, Summerton N. A survey of statistics in three UK general practice journal.BMC Med Res Methodol. 2004 4:28.

Scotch M, Parmanto B, Gadd CS, Sharma RK. Exploring the role of GIS during community health assessment. International Journal of Health Geographics. 2006; 5(36):1–10.

Hayat M.J. 2010. "Understanding Statistical Significance," Nursing Research, May/June: 59(3), 219–223.

Mary Johnson 2014. Statistical Analysis Software Programs in Biomedical Research. Labome the world of laboratories.

Bailar JC, Mosteller F: Guidelines for statistical reporting in articles for medical journals. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1988, 108 (2): 266-273.

Curran-Everett D, Benos DJ: Guidelines for reporting statistics in journals published by the American Physiological Society. Physiological Genomics. 2004, 18: 249-251. 10.1152/physiolgenomics.00155.2004.

Lang TA, Secic M: How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors and Reviewers. 2006.

Sarter M, Fritschy J-M: Reporting statistical methods and statistical results in EUR. European Journal of Neuroscience. 2008.