# Introduction
This course is designed to increase your confidence We will start you on your path towards becoming a confident, critically thinking, independent medical researcher. You will learn the foundations of medical statistics and study design.
The lessons start with the most basic aspects, and complexity is increased gradually over time. At the end of the course you will be astonished by the amount that you have learned.
Be warned, though, after this course you might look at medical research differently..
These are the topics that will be discussed
- The Basics
- Lesson 1: Data summary measures
- Lesson 2: Probability distributions
- Lesson 3: Basics of Statistical inference
- Lesson 4: Hypothesis testing and the p-value
- Estimating and testing
- Lesson 5: Estimating and testing differences
- Lesson 6: Describing and testing relationships
- Regression models
- Lesson 7: Modeling basics
- Lesson 7a: Introduction
- Lesson 7b: Linear Regression
- Lesson 7c: Logistic Regression
- Lesson 7d: Poisson Regression
- Lesson 7e: Cox Proportional-Hazards Regression
- Study Design
- Lesson 8: Thoroughly designing a study
- Lesson 8a: Introduction
- Lesson 8b: Etiological research
- Lesson 8c: Diagnostic research
- Lesson 8d: Prognostic research
- Lesson 8e: Intervention research
- Lesson 8f: Reproducibility research
- Lesson 9: Increasing your clinical impact
- Bonus Lesson
- Lesson 10: Statistical software
- Lesson 11: How to report stats on medical journal
## Types of data
### Variables information containing entity collectable as data subject variability Types: dependent vs independent / categorical vs continuos
| Categorical | Numerical | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominal | Nominal (fct, chr) | Continuos (int) |
| Ordinal | Ordinal (ordered fct / chr) | Count (dbl) |
Variables: independent: not related between Dependent: cluster data, multiple measures from the same patient
Summary Measures
| Normally distributed | Skewed | |
|---|---|---|
| Central tendency | mean(x) | median(x) |
| Spread | sd(x) | range(x) |