Course leader
Mahnaz Moghaddassi, mahnaz.moghaddassi@med.lu.se Statistician, Social Medicine and Global Health

Examiner
Jonas Björk

Target group
PhD-students at the medical faculty at the beginning of their studies

Time

Autumn 2021
Week 37 - in Swedish
Week 40 - in English

Spring 2021
Week 7 - in Swedish, digitally in Zoom
Week 10 - in English, digitally, in Zoom

Please note - Compulsory attendance all days!

Credits
1,5 credits 

Place 
Spring 2021, the course will be given digitally in Zoom.

Content of the course
The course includes the following three blocks:
1. Introduction to medical statistics
• Study design
• Generalizability
• Basic statistical concepts
• Descriptive statistics

2. Parameter estimates and hypothesis testing
• Basic principles
• P-value, confidence intervals and statistical power
• Common statistical tests for comparing two groups

3. Data management
• Create and validate datasets
• Documentation
• Basic knowledge in a statistical package (R, SPSS, Stata or equivalent)
• Reproducible analyses (script-based)

This course discusses questions that can be studied through quantitative methods. The course touches upon common study designs and basic statistical concepts, principles, and methods. The course introduces concepts like variable, distribution, parameter, random variability and variance. The concepts are illustrated by examples from medical science. The course will also include and discuss different measures of dispersions and proper graphical techniques to visualize and study characteristics of the collected data. The course will also introduce concepts like parameter estimation, and uncertainty will be discussed and described through standard errors and confidence intervals. Additionally hypothesis testing, p-values and statistical power are introduced. The course will also cover basic tests for comparing two groups e.g., t-test, Mann-Whitney, Chi-square and Fisher’s exact test.

Focus will be on interpretation and on which conclusions can be drawn from the results based on statistical significance, evidence, effect size and generalizability.
The course also includes a practical introduction to a statistical package. This session focuses on principles for data management but the participants’ will also get the opportunity to conduct the statistical analyses covered in the course.

The course includes three full days: two days with lectures and group sessions, and one day with data management and analyses. This day will be given separately for the programs R, SPSS and Stata. The participants are expected to choose one of these packages (or an equivalent) and then use this when participating in statistical courses on a higher level at the faculty.

Course literature
Kirkwood B and Sterne J. Essential Medical Statistics. Blackwell Science, 2nd edition, 2003. Chapter 2-8, 14, 15 and 17.
Available as e-book at Lund University (www.lub.lu.se)
The course will be held in English and requires active participation and access to laptop with installed statistical package. More information will be provided before the course.

The course will be held in English and requires active participation and access to laptop with installed statistical More information will be provided before the course.