A Gentle Introduction to Statistics and Clinical Reasoning for Clinicians

One day workshop

This 1-day course will explore in a friendly way the meaning of some of the commonly used basic statistical concepts often encountered in research papers and will explain, in non-mathematical terms, their relevance to clinical reasoning. The aim of the course is to provide a user-friendly guide for clinicians so that they are able to achieve a better understanding of basic statistical concepts when considering the evidence they use in clinical reasoning.

The course will be 80% theory and 20% practical. The theoretical components will cover the following areas

• The concept of evidence:
• What is research?
• The basics of statistical reasoning – clinical versus statistical significance
• Validity and reliability
• Basic statistical reasoning relating to concepts such as the typical value in data, the variability in data, confidence intervals, p values, effect sizes, ratio’s, numbers needed to treat.
• Statistical analysis with regards to the critical evaluation of research papers

The practical component of the course will involve some data collection to use for some of the examples used on the course.

The course will draw on examples from the current literature and attempt to demystify the often-terrifying area of statistics by using a ‘what do I need to know as a clinician’ approach?

Comprehensive course notes will be supplied.