Professional paper

Statistical errors in manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica journal

Ana-Maria Šimundić ; University Department of Chemistry, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia
Nora Nikolac ; University Department of Chemistry, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Introduction: The inappropriate use of statistical methods may lead to distorted results, incorrect conclusions, and substantial waste of financial and other resources and is considered highly unethical. Unfortunately, a great number of published medical research contain some statistical errors. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of several most common statistical errors, in manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica journal for possible publication, during the 4 year period, since 2006-2009.
Materials and methods: All original scienti2c and professional manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica during the 2006-2009 were eligible for the study, if they contained some kind of statistical analysis of the data. Manuscripts were reviewed manually by two reviewers. Following errors were included: 1) incorrect use or presentation of descriptive analysis; 2) incorrect choice of the statistical test; 3) incorrect use of statistical test for comparing three or more groups for differences; 4) incorrect presentation of P value; 5) incorrect interpretation of P value; 6) incorrect interpretation of correlation analysis; 7) power analysis not provided.
Results: A total of 55 eligible manuscripts were identified. None of these manuscripts reported power analysis. As of other 6 errors analyzed, at least one error was observed in 48/55 (0.87) manuscripts. Most common errors were incorrect use of statistical test for comparing three or more groups for differences (21/28 (0.75)) and incorrect presentation of P value (36/54 (0.66)).
Conclusion: The statistical errors are highly prevalent in manuscripts submitted to Biochemia Medica. All errors identified by statistical reviewer during the review process were successfully corrected prior to publication, what has greatly improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

Keywords

biostatistics; errors; data analysis; research ethics

Hrčak ID:

40859

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/40859

Publication date:

24.9.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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