Reznick R K, Dawson-Saunders E, Folse J R
Surgery. 1987 May;101(5):611-7.
The two aims of this study were to investigate the use of statistics in the surgical literature and to assess the degree of statistical comprehension possessed by graduating surgical residents. Two hundred journal articles were randomly selected from the 1984 issues of four surgical journals and were reviewed for statistical content. A classification of statistical techniques was created. A reader who has knowledge of descriptive statistics only has access to 44.5% of the articles. The addition of knowledge of t tests, contingency table analysis, other nonparametric techniques, and life table analysis to a reader's repertoire increases the access rate to 80.5%. The data indicate the specific statistical techniques that would best serve the surgeon who is attempting to increase access rate to the surgical literature. Ninety-one surgical residents in their fifth postgraduate year (PGY-5) responded to a questionnaire regarding their knowledge of statistics. While 90% of the respondents thought they would benefit from a course on statistics, 92% reported that they had received less than 5 hours of instruction in statistics during their residency. Both subjective self-ratings and objective testing revealed that the residents surveyed have a suboptimal knowledge of statistics. The results suggest the need for formal instruction in statistics during surgical residency.
本研究的两个目的是调查统计学在外科文献中的应用情况，并评估即将毕业的外科住院医师所具备的统计学理解程度。从1984年的四种外科期刊中随机选取了200篇期刊文章，并对其统计内容进行了审查。创建了一个统计技术分类。仅具备描述性统计学知识的读者只能查阅44.5%的文章。若读者掌握t检验、列联表分析、其他非参数技术和生命表分析等知识，查阅率可提高到80.5%。这些数据表明了哪些特定的统计技术最有助于外科医生提高对外科文献的查阅率。91名处于住院医师培训第五年（PGY-5）的外科住院医师回答了一份关于他们统计学知识的问卷。虽然90%的受访者认为他们会从统计学课程中受益，但92%的人报告称他们在住院医师培训期间接受的统计学教学时间少于5小时。主观自评和客观测试均表明，接受调查的住院医师对统计学的了解并不理想。结果表明，外科住院医师培训期间需要进行正式的统计学教学。
