Understanding Clinical Papers

Preface to the First Edition vii Preface to the Third Edition ix PART I SETTING THE SCENE: WHO DID WHAT, AND WHY 1 1 Some Preliminaries 3 2 The Abstract and Introduction 7 3 The Aims and Objectives 14 PART II DESIGN MATTERS: WHAT TYPE OF STUDY IS IT? 21 4 Descriptive Studies: Qualitative 23 5 Descriptive Studies: Quantitative 29 6 Analytic Studies 35 7 Intervention Studies 42 8 Mixed Methods Research 50 PART III THE CAST: FINDING OUT ABOUT THE SUBJECTS OF THE RESEARCH 53 9 The Research Setting 55 10 Populations and Samples in Quantitative Research 59 11 The Sample in Qualitative Research 63 12 Identifying and Defining Cases 67 13 Controls and Comparisons 70 PART IV ESTABLISHING THE FACTS: STARTING WITH BASIC OBSERVATIONS 75 14 Identifying the Characteristics of Quantitative Data 77 15 Summarising the Characteristics of Quantitative Data 84 16 Identifying and Summarising the Characteristics of Qualitative Data 90 17 Measuring the Characteristics of Participants: Quantitative 93 18 Measuring the Characteristics of Participants: Qualitative 99 19 Measuring the Characteristics of Measures 102 20 Measurement Scales 106 21 Exploring and Explaining: Topic Guides 118 PART V ESTABLISHING MORE OF THE FACTS: SOME COMMON WAYS OF DESCRIBING RESULTS 121 22 Fractions, Proportions, and Rates 123 23 Risks and Odds 125 24 Ratios of Risks and Odds 128 PART VI ANALYSING THE DATA: ESTIMATION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING 135 25 Confidence Intervals for Means, Proportions, and Medians 137 26 Confidence Intervals for Ratios 143 27 Testing Hypotheses - the p-Value 147 PART VII ANALYSING THE DATA: MULTIVARIABLE METHODS 161 28 Measuring Association 163 29 Measuring Agreement 170 30 Linear Regression 175 31 Logistic Regression 185 32 Measuring Survival 190 33 Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis 196 34 Analysing Qualitative Data 206 35 Results in Text and Tables 211 36 Results in Pictures 219 37 The Discussion and Conclusions 227 References 231 Index 239