for HCA 699 What is the difference between statistically significant evidence and clinically significant evidence?  Re: Topic 6 DQ 2

“Clinical significance of a result is dependent on its implications on existing practice-treatment effect size being one of the most important factors that drives treatment decisions. LeFort suggests that the clinical significance should reflect “the extent of change, whether the change makes a real difference to subject lives, how long the effects last, consumer acceptability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of implementation”. Statistical significance is heavily dependent on the study’s sample size; with large sample sizes, even small treatment effects (which are clinically inconsequential) can appear statistically significant; therefore, the reader has to interpret carefully whether this “significance” is clinically meaningful” (Ranganathan, Pramesh, & Buyse, 2015, para. 2).

The difference between statistically significant evidence and clinically significant evidence is most clinical research that are statistically significant are often interpreted as being clinically important. On the other hand, statistical significance indicates the reliability of the study results typically reflects an impact as clinical practice. Statistically significant evidence is often times referred to as an absolute value of S is greater than the critical value this would ultimately give you the formula of the to the answer of the equation. Clinically significant evidence is more related to the abstract not so much based on the trend that usually most evidence would come from. The way each of these findings would be used to advance an evidenced based project would be very interesting. I think the more concrete method to use would be statistically significant evidence because it tends to lead more to the certain and concrete evidence more than a guess or some one’s opinion. When using clinically significant evidence it is more based on some one’s own research and the determination or conclusion they were able to come to using the formula or information they had at the time. These two different types of methods can be confusing at times because the user may not know what avenue to take but depending on the evidence you are currently looking for that will kind of steer you in the direction. Listening to what you are looking for is extremely important because picking the wrong evidence will have the information you receive be very incorrect.

References

Ranganathan, P., Pramesh, C. D., & Buyse, M. (2015). Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: Clinical versus statistical significance. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 6(3), 169-170. doi: https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.4103/2229-3485.159943