Advances and Applications in Statistics
Volume 63, Issue 1, Pages 75 - 83
(July 2020) http://dx.doi.org/10.17654/AS063010075 |
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p-VALUE MISCONCEPTIONS IN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND PATIENTS
Carina Ferreira, Teresa Abreu and Mário Basto
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Abstract: The interpretation of the p-value from an experiment is often inappropriate. Many professionals from the most diversified areas do it, leading to over appreciation of significant effects without any practical implications or dismissal of non-significant results but with significant practical repercussions. In this paper, one ascertains if health professionals and the general population understand correctly four common errors about a significant test. A questionnaire was made available online for three months and ten days, from January 2019 to April 2019. The outcomes show that misinterpretations of what the p-value means are still prevalent in health professionals and the general population. The illusion of knowledge about the meaning of a p-value, together with its wrong interpretation, may drive to objectionable conclusions and wrong decision-making, which can have high costs in the health of patients. |
Keywords and phrases: p-value, effect size, significance testing, hypothesis testing.
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