Product Description

Now in its Third Edition, An Introduction to Medical Statistics continues to be an invaluable textbook for medical students, doctors, medical researchers, nurses, members of professions allied to medicine as well as all those concerned with medical data. The material covered includes all the statistical work that would be required for a course in medicine and for the examinations of most of the Royal Colleges. It includes the design of clinical trials and epidemiological studies, data collection, summarizing and presenting data, probability, standard error, confidence intervals and significance tests, techniques of data analysis including multifactorial methods and the choice of statistical method, problems of medical measurement and diagnosis, vital statistics, and calculation of sample size. The new edition describes the design and analysis of medical research studies in a clear and user friendly manner. The Third Edition includes new topics such as consent in clinical trials, design and analysis of cluster-randomized trials, ecological studies, conditional probability, repeated testing, random effects models, intraclass correlation, and conditional odds ratios. Material which is encountered only at the postgraduate level has been indicated clearly in the text to facilitate ease of use. The book is firmly grounded in medical data, particularly in medical research, and includes real illustrative examples. There are 100 multiple choice questions and 17 long questions involving calculations to which fully explained solutions are provided. A new companion volume, Statistical questions in evidence-based medicine (Bland & Peacock, 2000) refers directly to this new edition. This new book of questions and answers includes no calculations and is complementary to the exercises given here. Reviewers comments 'If you want to understand some of the statistical ideas important to medicine but fear being overwhelmed by mathematics you will welcome An Introduction to Medical Statistics.' British Medical Journal 'At last I have a book on medical statistics that I can safely recommend to my students!...One of the pleasures of the book is that it contains real data...' Journal of the Royal Statistical Society

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89077 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 405 pages

CAB Abstracts
"The material covered includes all the statistical work that would be required in a course in medicine."

Review
The material covered includes all the statistical work that would be required in a course in medicine. (CAB Abstracts )

From the Author
An Introduction to Medical Statistics
The approach to statistics in my book is firmly embedded in medical research. All the methods described are illustrated with the use of real data, either from my own research or from the medical literature. Equations and formulae are given where appropriate and manual calculation is described, but the use of computers for calculations is emphasised, together with the graphical methods which computers make easy. For those who do not like to take things on trust, mathematical appendices are included which explain the derivation of the various statistical formulae, and graphical simulations are used to illustrate some of the more surprising statistical principles. Sections which cover material not usually included in the undergraduate syllabus are clearly indicated.

Two types of exercises are included: 100 multiple-choice questions of the five branches True/False type, and long exercises involving calculations. Full solutions are given.

You can try before you buy. Specimen sections, including some exercises and answers, can be read on my website.

You can also download most of the data sets used in the book from this site, so that you can try the analyses for yourself.

I hope you like this book. There is a companion book, Statistical Questions in Evidence-based Medicine, by myself and Janet Peacock, which has no calculations but rather is concerned with understanding and interpretation of the statistical methods used in medical research. This is also described, with sample questions and answers, on my web site.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive and easy to understand
This is one of the most useful books I have read in a long time!! Not only does this book cover a range of topics in great detail, but the author also manages to put across the facts in a meaningful context. For years I have sat through lectures on statistics - thinking I knew quite a lot - until I got into the real world, looking at real data. It was then that I started my search to find a statistics book that too related to the world - and here it is! Most useful section to date - age standardising mortality rates. The author also supplies a web address providing working datasets to aid understanding of most of the topics.

A great introduction to Statistics.
Statistics can be a difficult subject to grasp, and i searched for a while for a comprehensive book to help me understand the Lecture material.

In introdution to medical statistics is simply a fantastic book. It is well worded, and presented in a logical and coherent manner. Although slightly daunting at first, being a relitavely large book, it makes use of simple language and cleverly placed diagrams to assist the reader.

This book is suitable for students entering into any type of medical degree, or for anyone with an interests in the way medical studies are conducted today. It assumes very little prior knowledge.

All in all, a great book, well worth the money

a bit advanced...
Im new to medical statisitcs and I needed a book which explained things in simple english. I found this book did this in places but not enough for me to fully comprehend the subject matter. Personally I would recommend the book to people who have a basic/intermediate knowledge of statistics- not complete beginners/ those struggling with the subject.