A good understanding of medical statistics is essential to evaluate medical research and to choose appropriate ways of implementing findings in clinical practice. The Oxford Handbook of Medical Statistics has been written to provide doctors and medical students with a comprehensive yet concise account of this often difficult subject. Described by readers as a 'statistical Bible', this new edition maintains the accessibility and thoroughness of the original, and includes comprehensive updates including new sections on transitional medicine, cluster designs, and modern statistical packages. The Handbook promotes understanding and interpretation of statistical methods across a wide range of topics, from study design and sample size considerations, through t- and chi-squared tests, to complex multifactorial analyses, all using examples from published research. References and further reading are included, to allow deeper understanding on specific topics. Featuring a new chapter on how to use this book in different medical contexts, the Oxford Handbook of Medical Statistics helps readers to conduct their own research and critically appraise others' work.

As many medical and healthcare researchers have a love-hate relationship with statistics, the second edition of this practical reference book may make all the difference. Using practical examples, mainly from the authors' own research, the book explains how to make sense of statistics, turn statistical computer output into coherent information, and help decide which pieces of information to report and how to present them. The book takes you through all the stages of the research process, from the initial research proposal, through ethical approval and data analysis, to reporting on and publishing the findings. Helpful tips and information boxes, offer clear guidance throughout, including easily followed instructions on how to: -develop a quantitative research proposal for ethical/institutional approval or research funding -write up the statistical aspects of a paper for publication -choose and perform simple and more advanced statistical analyses -describe the statistical methods and present the results of an analysis. This new edition covers a wider range of statistical programs - SAS, STATA, R, and SPSS, and shows the commands needed to obtain the analyses and how to present it, whichever program you are using. Each specific example is annotated to indicate other scenarios that can be analysed using the same methods, allowing you to easily transpose the knowledge gained from the book to your own research. The principles of good presentation are also covered in detail, from translating relevant results into suitable extracts, through to randomised controlled trials, and how to present a meta-analysis. An added ingredient is the inclusion of code and datasets for all analyses shown in the book on our website (http://medical-statistics.info). Written by three experienced biostatisticians based in the UK and US, this is a step-by-step guide that will be invaluable to researchers and postgraduate students in medicine, those working in the professions allied to medicine, and statisticians in consultancy roles.