Use of statistical tests and statistical software choice in 2014: tale from three Medline indexed Pakistani journals

Statistical tests help infer meaningful conclusions from studies conducted and data collected. This descriptive study analyzed the type of statistical tests used and the statistical software utilized for analysis reported in the original articles published in 2014 by the three Medline-indexed journals of Pakistan. Cumulatively, 466 original articles were published in 2014. The most frequently reported statistical tests for original articles by all three journals were bivariate parametric and non-parametric tests i.e. involving comparisons between two groups e.g. Chi-square test, t-test, and various types of correlations. Cumulatively, 201 (43.1%) articles used these tests. SPSS was the primary choice for statistical analysis, as it was exclusively used in 374 (80.3%) original articles. There has been a substantial increase in the number of articles published, and in the sophistication of statistical tests used in the articles published in the Pakistani Medline indexed journals in 2014, compared to 2007.