engleski

Processing and presentation specificities of biochemical research data

Medical informatics is scientific discipline that “ melds the data analysis tools of computing with medical information and the provision of health-care services” (Genomics Glossary). From that point of view, basic purpose of biomedical research is to collect the data and to obtain information about particular topic that has been investigated. Usually, data are obtained from sample that represents the population, the whole group of individuals of our interest. We collect and analyze data on a sample of randomly chosen individuals and use them to draw conclusions about the population. That process of making inferences is the meaning of any scientific research, biochemical as well. But correct sampling is only the first step. Statistical management of data obtained from biomedical research and from clinical trials is a complex knowledge of choosing an appropriate statistical method for the data analysis and data presentation. Beside statistical analysis itself, handling the data also implicitly includes that researcher has knowledge on sampling, data and errors types, outliers, distributions, measures of average and data spread, theory of hypothesis and study design, data transformations, and much more. Readers of scientific papers also must have knowledge on statistical data handling ; otherwise, reading can not be critical as expected. As presented by Tom Lang in Croatian Medical Journal (2004 ; 45:361), inadequate statistical reporting in scientific literature is mostly due to authors’ poor knowledge about research design and statistics, statisticians’ inability to communicate statistics to authors, editors and readers, lack of involvement of statisticians at the beginning of research, and not applying statistical reporting guidelines. The presentation will discuss some typical errors and pitfalls dealing with processing and presentation specificities of biochemical research data from an observational study on autoimmune diseases data management, originally prepared for the purpose of the Fifth FESCC Continuous Postgraduate Course on Clinical Chemistry.

biostatistics; presentation of data

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