ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Medicine Residents’ Understanding of the Biostatistics and Results in the Medical Literature

PHYSICIANS MUST KEEP CURRENT with clinical information to practice evidence-based medicine (EBM). In doing so, most prefer to seek evidence-based summaries, which give the clinical bottom line, or evidence-based practice guidelines. Resources that maintain these information summaries, however, currently include a limited number of common conditions. Thus, to answer many of their clinical questions, physicians need to access reports of original research. This requires the reader to critically appraise the design, conduct, and analysis of each study and subsequently interpret the results. Several surveys in the 1980s demonstrated that practicing physicians, particularly those with no formal education in epidemiology and biostatistics, had a poor understanding of common statistical tests and limited ability to interpret study results. Many physicians likely have increased difficulty today because more complicated statistical methods are being reported in the medical literature. They may be able to understand the analysis and interpretation of results in only 21% of research articles. Educators have responded by increasing training in critical appraisal and biostatistics throughout the continuum of medical education. Many medical schools currently provide some formal teaching of basic statistical concepts. As part of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s practicebased learning and improvement competency, residents must demonstrate ability in “locating, appraising, and assimilating evidence from scientific studies related to their patients’ problems and apply knowledge of study designs and statistical methods to the appraisal of