Helping New Healthcare Researchers to Consider Statistics Early

• Activity Number: 74 - Challenges and Approaches to Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, July 29, 2018 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): Nicole Herrera* and Heather Gordish-Dressman and James Bost
• Companies: Children's National Medical Center and Children's National Medical Center and Children's National Medical Center
• Keywords: New Researchers; Methods; Research Development; Study Design

Abstract

As professionals in healthcare enter residency they come with a range of experience and training when it comes to conducting research projects. Resident research mentors should refer to the FINER and PICOT criteria in order to aid these new researchers in producing well-defined and specific research questions; aiding in the conception of an analysis plan while building the aims and the hypotheses. The purpose of this presentation is to lay the groundwork for a successful project or study conceived by new researchers. By having a statistician involved early in the process, they can aid in the determination of power and sample size, the creation of the most effective means of collecting data, and the development of a statistical analysis plan. Statisticians can help fine tune the aims and hypothesis, while also aiding in the structure of a database. This is important so data collected is pertinent to the research questions, and collected in a manner that is clean which will lead to a more fruitful analysis.