Determining the statistical knowledge of pharmacy practitioners: A survey and review of the literature

Increasing complexity of medical studies and statistics make it important f or pharmacists to be able to evaluate the appropriateness of statistical te sts used in the literature and assess if reasonable conclusions were drawn. To determine if pharmacists are able to perform this evaluation, a two-par t survey was designed that asked demographic and 10 multiple choice statist ical questions. Of the 2500 surveys mailed, 707 (28.3 percent) contained us able responses. The average score on the statistical portion was 2.80 out o f 10 (SD=2.0). Part of the reason for this low average was that 57.5 percen t of statistical questions were answered "E" - I don't know. Most commonly, pharmacists appeared to understand a crossover study design (77.7 percent correct), characteristics of statistical tests (62.5 percent), and statisti cal versus clinical significance (50.8 percent). Pharmacists had difficulty identifying other common statistical terms. From this study, pharmacists a ppear to lack the necessary skills to evaluate the statistical section of m edical studies.