Das Sabyasachi, Mitra Koel, Mandal Mohanchandra
Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Medical College, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, North Bengal Medical College, Sushrutanagar, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India.
Indian J Anaesth. 2016 Sep;60(9):652-656. doi: 10.4103/0019-5049.190621.
Addressing a sample size is a practical issue that has to be solved during planning and designing stage of the study. The aim of any clinical research is to detect the actual difference between two groups (power) and to provide an estimate of the difference with a reasonable accuracy (precision). Hence, researchers should do estimate of sample size well ahead, before conducting the study. sample size computation is not encouraged conventionally. Adequate sample size minimizes the random error or in other words, lessens something happening by chance. Too small a sample may fail to answer the research question and can be of questionable validity or provide an imprecise answer while too large a sample may answer the question but is resource-intensive and also may be unethical. More transparency in the calculation of sample size is required so that it can be justified and replicated while reporting.
确定样本量是研究规划和设计阶段必须解决的一个实际问题。任何临床研究的目的都是检测两组之间的实际差异（效能），并以合理的准确度（精度）对差异进行估计。因此，研究人员应在开展研究之前尽早对样本量进行估计。传统上不鼓励进行样本量计算。足够的样本量可将随机误差降至最低，或者换句话说，减少偶然发生的事情。样本量过小可能无法回答研究问题，其有效性可能存疑，或者提供不准确的答案，而样本量过大可能能回答问题，但资源密集，也可能不符合伦理道德。在样本量计算方面需要更高的透明度，以便在报告时能够说明其合理性并可重复。
