Sample size requirements for establishing clinical test-retest standards
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Garnett P McMillan1, Timothy E Hanson
11VA RR&D National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (NCRAR), Portland VA, Medical Center, Portland, Oregon, USA; 2Oregon Health and Science University, Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Portland, Oregon, USA; and 3Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, 216 LeConte College Columbia, South Carolina, USA.
Objective:
To define sample size requirements for establishing clinical serial monitoring protocols.
Design:
The 95% confidence bound of a critical difference score is defined and used to identify false-negative regions suitable for sample size calculation.
Results:
Reference subject sample sizes vary from about 40 to 480 subjects, depending on the minimum acceptable error rates of the clinical protocol.
Conclusions:
Sample size requirements for establishing test-retest standards are generally defined and suitable for any serial monitoring protocol.
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