Essentials of Statistics in Dental Research: Part 1.

ABSTRACT

Dental professionals review articles in scientific dental journals to be informed about progress in the field and to remain up to date in the dental literature. As a general rule, knowing the basic statistical concepts such as study design, hypothesis testing, confidence interval, significance level, effect size, and sample size and power can help readers to better understand the whole concept of an article. Reviews of statistical methodology in published papers of well-established dental journals concluded that the majority of the papers contained statistical errors. Inappropriate use of statistical methods may lead to incorrect conclusions and a waste of valuable resources. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview on some implications of the statistical concepts and recommendations for avoiding statistical errors in dental research.