BCACP - Stats 1 (Basic Status and Study Design) Questions With Complete Solutions

What is a continuous variable? correct answer: an infinite number of values are possible Two types of continuous variables? correct answer: interval (change in units is consistent) and ratio (similar to interval, except have an absolute zero) What is a discrete variable? 2 types correct answer: dichotomous or categorical Nominal variable? correct answer: discrete variables classified into groups with no particular order (sex and mortality) Ordinal variable? correct answer: discrete variable allowing rank but without a consistent size in between (pain score) what is the mean sensitive too? correct answer: outliers what is the median? correct answer: the middle number in the order what is the mode? correct answer: number that appears most often what does a distribution describe? correct answer: the spread of the data what is the range? IQR? correct answer: distance between min and max, distance between 75th and 25th percentile (middle 50%) what is the SD? correct answer: square root of the variance Con of tertiary literature correct answer: lag time for updates interpretation is dependent on author opinion often incomplete Primary purpose of secondary literature? correct answer: index of abstract primary literature and teriatry lit found in journals, provide a rapid method to search for primary literaure What questions to ask when evaluating web sites? correct answer: source of information, cost of access, quality of information, usability What is the definition of evidence based medicine? correct answer: The conscientious explicity and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual pts while integrating clinical experience with the best available evidence from a systemic search What are some of the critisisms of EBM? correct answer: cookbook to reduce clinician autonomy; too dificult to apply to individual pts; limited data to suggest that evidence based guidelines translate to improved care Quality improvement vs research definitions correct answer: if the results of a project are presented outside an organization, it is defined as research, if only used internally, and not meant to contribute to generalized knowledge, then QI What is the Nuremberg code? correct answer: 1948 germany, subjects need to give informed consent and benefits must outweight risks