Clinical and Statistical Significance

Clinical and Statistical Significance

Even though the two terms are frequently used synonymously, there exists a subtle difference between clinical significance and statistical significance. In medical terms, the former refers to an outcome whose course of intervention has had reliable and valid effects. In contrast, statistical significance is typically assigned to an outcome whose event is established to be unlikely to have taken place by chance (LeFort, 2017). There also exists a difference in key terms between the two concepts. For instance, in clinical significance,  the effect size denotes the measure of an observed phenomenon’s magnitude. For instance, the effect size of two interventions in treating pressure ulcers, such as alternating pressure mattresses and standard mattresses, by examining their mean differences with their efficacy rates (Fethney, 2018).

The null hypothesis, on the other hand, in statistical significance is based on the assumption that there is no statistical significance that has been noted. Hence, in the example of the two mattresses, the null hypothesis would state that standard mattresses are not effective in managing pressure ulcers as compared to alternating pressure mattresses.  Other than the effect size, the other key term is the number needed to treat (NNT) versus the p-value (Ranganathan, 2015). The number needed to treat refers to an effect size that evaluates the average number of patients that are required to be treated to prevent an additional adverse outcome or the number who require the intervention over the control. In contrast, the p-value is the probability of realizing a study’s outcome if the null hypothesis is assumed to be valid. As such, if p =0.005 means that there is a 5 percent chance that any noted difference is the outcome of random chance.

References

Ranganathan, P. (2015). Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: Clinical versus statistical significance. Perspectives in clinical research, 6(3), 169–170. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-3485.159943

LeFort S. M. (2017). The statistical versus clinical significance debate. Image–the journal of nursing scholarship, 25(1), 57–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.1993.tb00754.x

Fethney J. (2018). Statistical and clinical significance, and how to use confidence intervals to help interpret both. Australian critical care: official journal of the Confederation of Australian Critical Care Nurses, 23(2), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aucc.2010.03.001

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Clinical and Statistical Significance

Define clinical significance and explain the difference between clinical and statistical significance. How can you use clinical significance to support positive outcomes in your project?

Notes:
Hi, Prevention of pressure sores in an acute care setting is my EPI project. Thank you