Al-Iraqia University / college of dentistry/ 3rd stage students

Assist. Lect. Aws Fakhri Alfatlawi

WHY LEARN STATISTICS?
Everyday we are faced with oceans of facts and figures. It is impossible
to consider each fact individually, so we use “statis- tics” to describe, or
summarize numbers, group them according to characteristics and
compare with other groups.
Statistical methods can be used to summarize or describe a collection
of data; this is called descriptive statistics. In addition, patterns in the
data may be modeled in a way that accounts for randomness and
uncertainty in the observations, and then used to draw inferences
about the process or the population being studied; this is called
inferential statistics. Both descriptive and inferential statistics comprise
applied statistics
 Applied statistics

Descriptive inferential
statistics statistics
• Purpose of Statistics
– Assemble, Organize and Analyze Data
– Draw Conclusions about Data
– Form Predications
• Usually a subset of the population called a sample is studied in
observational or experimental settings.
• Statistical analysis is descriptive or inferential
• Inferences drawn from the sample are extrapolated to the population
Data
• The health sector generates a lot of data. These can be routine data
such as patients’ records or from special studies. Patients’ data may
be clinical information, images or lab reports. Valuable information
can be generated from data thus collected.
• For research studies, data collection is standardized and systematic.
Studies are broadly classified as observational where the assignment
of subjects to exposure groups is not determined by the researcher,
but rather by the study subjects themselves, or by other factors, or
experimental, where the researcher controls the exposure variable.
 A variable is a factor that can take different values for individuals in
a study. A variable may be quantitative, that is, it takes a numerical value;
or it may be qualitative or categorical, in which case it describes an
attribute.
For example, changes in body weight after specific periods on a
prescribed diet are quantitative because, for each subject, the
observation takes a numerical value.
In contrast, a child may or may not show evidence of dental caries at a
particular moment in time. In this case the observation describes the
presence or absence of a characteristic, and it is therefore qualitative
rather than quantitative.
DATA DISPLAY AND SUMMARY
• Types of Data
The first step, before summarizing or plotting of data, is to decide what
type of data one is dealing with as that decides how it is to be
summarized or depicted.
Data can be classified in a number of ways. One is as described before
i.e. qualitative and quantitative. Another way is to classify them as
follows.
 Nominal
Data is in the form of names, labels, or categories.
The data cannot be ranked or grouped in any order
at all.
Examples: Gender, Race, Type of teeth etc.
Ordinal
There can be some sort of ordering but the
differences are meaningless,
e.g.: Large – Medium – Small;
Good – Bad, Malnourished;
Normal – Overweight – Obese,
or Decayed– Missing – Filled
 Interval
There are meaningful differences between data
points.
However there is no true zero,
e.g. Knoop Hardness for composites.
However one data point cannot be divided by
another to give a ratio.
One cannot say 100 C is twice as hot as 50 C.
Ratio
This is similar to interval, but ratio has a true zero
or starting point, e.g.: height, weight, length,
distance traveled, etc. Each point value can be
expressed as meaningful ratio to another e.g. –
twice the weight
 Data is classified according to
the highest level which it fits
Each additional level adds something the previous level didn’t have.
• Nominal is the lowest level. Only names are meaningful here.
• Ordinal adds an order to the names.
• Interval adds meaningful differences
• Ratio adds a zero so that ratios are meaningful.
• Nominal and ordinal variables are summarized by counts and
proportions whereas interval and ratio variables by measures of
central tendency such as mean and measures of variation such as
standard deviation and range.
• Generally it is easier to summarize nominal and ordinal variables.
Hence, ratio variables are often converted to ordinal variables,
e.g.: height to Tall – Medium – Short, Blood Pressure to Hypertensive –
Non-hypertensive etc. However nominal data cannot be converted to
interval. Hence at data collection it is advisable to retain data type
instead of precoding it.
To make a clinical decision we usually do not need the exact value
e.g.: serum potassium levels. It would suffice if it was within the
normal range. Hence we often convert ratio scales to ordinal.
However by converting a ratio value to an ordinal one, information
is lost and the sensitivity of statistical interpretation is reduced.
Further, the conversion is based on statistical principles rather than
being done arbitrarily.

Good Medium Severe

Sampling Technique
• The main objectives of sampling are estimation of populartion
parameters from the sample statistics e.g.: mean
Random sampling is similar to putting everyone’s name into a hat and
drawing out several names.
Each element in the population has an equal chance of being included
in the sample. While this is the preferred way of sampling, it is often
difficult to do.
It requires that a complete list of every element in the population be
obtained. Random number tables or random number generators are
used for this technique.
Systematic sampling is easier to do than random sampling.
It is a feasible method in hospital settings as patients come sequentially.
The whole sampling frame need not be defined. In systematic sampling
every nth element in the sample is selected. The list of elements is
“counted off”.
Stratified sampling also divides the population into groups called
strata. However, this time it is by some characteristic, not
geographically. For instance, the population might be separated into
males and females. A sample is taken from each of these strata using
either random, systematic, or convenience sampling.
• Cluster sampling is accomplished by dividing the population into
groups — usually geographically
• Convenience sampling is very easy to do and often used by health
professionals, but it’s probably the worst technique to use. It is non
probabilistic sample. In convenience sampling, readily available data is
used. That is, the first people the surveyor runs into are selected.
You can understand