How to interpret the results?

M

maysa

New Member
#1
#1
Hello Sir or Madam,and all guys,
Tomoorow i have to handin my answers on exam , and unfortunately ,i have this question , i can not answer , i will appreciate if you help me.

Q:A randomized clinical trial to compare a particular treatment to placebo is conducted . A two -tailed t-test of the null hypothesis that the treatment has no effect gives a p-value <0.001 and the 95%confidence interval for the benefit due to treatment is (5,30). If a benefit of 1 unit was clinically important , how would you interpret the results ,ie., would you say that (1)the treatment is likely to be worthwhile , (2)the treatment is not worthwhile, or (3) the study does not provide a definitive answer? How would your interpretation change if the minimum clinically important benefit was 25 units ? or 50 units.

Thank you so much
 
JohnM

JohnM

TS Contributor
#2
#2
maysa said:
Hello Sir or Madam,and all guys,
Tomoorow i have to handin my answers on exam , and unfortunately ,i have this question , i can not answer , i will appreciate if you help me.

Q:A randomized clinical trial to compare a particular treatment to placebo is conducted . A two -tailed t-test of the null hypothesis that the treatment has no effect gives a p-value <0.001 and the 95%confidence interval for the benefit due to treatment is (5,30). If a benefit of 1 unit was clinically important , how would you interpret the results ,ie., would you say that (1)the treatment is likely to be worthwhile , (2)the treatment is not worthwhile, or (3) the study does not provide a definitive answer? How would your interpretation change if the minimum clinically important benefit was 25 units ? or 50 units.

Thank you so much
Click to expand...
If a benefit of 1 is clinically important, then the interpretation is (1) - the treatment is likely to be worthwhile, because the lower end of the confidence interval "exceeds" or is higher than 1 (i.e., 5 to 30)

The interpretation changes with a minimum clinically important benefit of 25, since the confidence interval of (5,30) "includes" 25. Therefore we fail to reject the null hypothesis, and state that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that there is any benefit.

There is a slightly different conclusion with a minimum clinically important benefit of 50. Since the upper confidence limit is 30, we can say there is enough evidence to conclude that the treatment does not provide a benefit.
 
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