Basic & Clinical Biostatistics [Paperback]

Beth K. Dawson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0838505104 | ISBN-13: 978-0838505106 | Publication Date: November 10, 2000 | Edition: 3rd

Here is absolutely everything medical students need to know about biostatistics and quantitative methods as applied to medicine, clinical practice, and research. Case study approach introduces problems at the beginning of each chapter, to clarify concepts. Includes CD-ROM of data sets.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a well-written, well-presented biostatistics book for health researchers. The back of the cover page has a navigation figure that relates the chapters to specific analytic questions. The book has good examples from health sciences and is comparable to other books in this field."

From the Back Cover

An ideal introduction to the study of statistics applied to medicine and other health-related fields.

*Statistical information and methods showcased in clinical, medical, and research applications *Study design and interpretation of results of research emphasized *Updated discussion of evidence-based medicine, determining sample sizes, studies with repeated measures over time, and logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards model *Presenting problems, drawn from studies published in the medical literature that illustrate various statistical methods, included *CD-ROM with statistical software and data sets derived from presenting problems highlighted in the book *End-of-chapter exercises *Multiple-choice final practice exam

The essentials of biostatistics and quantitative methods in medicine, clinical practice, and research

*first choice of students, educators, and practitioners *A thorough, meaningful, and interesting presentation of biostatistics *Provides the resources to help students become informed users and consumers of biostatistics

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 399 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill (Tx); 3rd edition (November 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0838505104
• ISBN-13: 978-0838505106
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,174,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Review for the 3rd edition: Just the Facts, November 21, 2000

By 

Ralph Leonard, MD (Boston, Massachusetts United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Basic and Clinical Biostatistics (Lange Medical Books) (Paperback)

1. Huge breadth: covers topics of interest to clinicians and plenty of material (see below) for aspiring researchers. Algorithms and lay-out keeps the big picture easily in view. 2. Solved problems: methodical answers, clear, instructive. 3. Appropriate depth: is mathematically correct -- not oversimiplified at the cost of accuracy -- while introducing the key formulas and concepts. Much explanatory text makes the ideas clear rather than esoteric derivations. 4. Includes statistics software: menu-driven so "user friendly," has basic and advanced functions. 5. Practical approach: sample problems and exercises are modelled around cases rather than just theory. These cases have data-base directly on the accompanying software so readers may 'learn' and then 'do' immediately. 6. I learned a lot from this book :-)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Primer, August 17, 2005

By 

Mattelfesso "Matthew" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Basic & Clinical Biostatistics (LANGE Basic Science) (Paperback)

I bought this book in 1990 (an older version) and have never had a statistics course. I have found it to be an extremely helpful starting point for the application of statistical tests to biomedical problems. From this I have gone on and used more sophisticated tools for computation and have only rarely needed to seek out the advice of experts.

The book is packed full of information and covers the broad range of problems most often encountered in biomedical science. It emphasizes an understanding of the choice an appropriate test for a given problem. Flow charts also help guide the user to the right test and the correct chapter. For this reason I have come back to it repeatedly over the years and it has become well worn. It is sparse on explanation of the statistical or mathematical proofs of methods so it is more of a cookbook than as a theoretical treatise.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not good for a beginner - useful as a reference, August 19, 2008

By 

Alec Mclure (Providence,RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Basic & Clinical Biostatistics (LANGE Basic Science) (Paperback)

This book was used in my grad level intro biostatistics course some months ago- for an intro course (or at least for my learning style) it just didn't work and I had to find alternate resources for almost everything I was studying. (Note that I heard the same or similar from a few of the other students in my class in informal conversation).

I think they were trying to be innovative with how they arranged it - but, at least for me, the material didn't build logically and I kept jumping back and forth trying to figure out what was going on and build my knowledge/expertise in a logical way.

Other people have pointed out the errata, which my teacher had to bring up every once in a while - for a beginner who wouldn't be able to identify them, it's not a good thing.

On a plus, it's nice that it comes w/ some databases on CD you can play with. There are some good flowcharts on picking a test. And it does present good clinical context.

I'll keep the book as an additional reference, but in my opinion it was not the right one to learn the basics on if you're starting at zero. From a student's perspective, wouldn't recommend it at all for a beginning class.

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A couple of years later - and a fair amount of biostats under my belt - I think I was right. It's one of my useful references now that I've learned biostats from other sources.