Scientific vs. statistical inference: the problem of multiple contrasts in clinical research.

K. J. Ottenbacher

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The problem of type 1 error rates in clinical medicine research is discussed and a new measure of evaluating the incidences of type 1 error is presented. Three measures, including the experimentwise error rate, the error rate per experiment, and the percentage error rate are used to compute the type 1 error in a sample of clinical research. The results suggest the presence of a substantial incidence of type 1 error in the sampled research. The implications for statistical and scientific inferences are briefly discussed and some possible solutions explored.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)172-177
Number of pages6
JournalThe American journal of the medical sciences
Volume295
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1988
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Scientific vs. statistical inference: the problem of multiple contrasts in clinical research.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this