Clinical evaluation: analysing and discussing the results

This is the last of six papers considering the evaluation of clinical treatments. The purpose of clinical evaluation is to identify changes that result from a particular form of treatment. Study findings are presented in the results section of a report. They may be summarised in tables or graphs so that changes, and the extent of those changes, can be clearly identified. Statistical tests may be used to confirm that these changes are due to treatment and not to chance. The choice of statistical tests employed depends on the methods used and should be selected when designing the study. The meaning of the results and their implications are discussed in the final section of of this paper.