BMJ  2004;329:462 (21 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7463.462

Letter

BMJ statistical errors

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Abbasi in his Editor's choice discusses a study that found statistical errors in 25% of papers published by the BMJ in 2001.¹ As statistical advisers to the BMJ we aim to improve the quality of published papers by ensuring that their conclusions are consistent with the data. To this end we hope to identify important errors that affect the interpretation of the findings, but care less about more minor errors. Any stricter policy would be impossibly time consuming. That said, we recognise that important errors do slip through from time to time, and are always keen to improve our performance.

The particular errors flagged in the paper² were inconsistencies between test statistics and P values. Out of 63 tests seven (11%) were wrong (for example ² on 1 df = 4.2, P reported = 0.024, P actual = 0.0404). Yet in no case did the error affect the test's . . . [Full text of this article]

Institute of Child Health, University College London WC1N 1EH tim.cole@ich.ucl.ac.uk

ICRF Medical Statistics Group, Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF

Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ

ScHARR, Community Services Centre, Northern General Hospital, Sheffield S5 7AU

ICRF Medical Statistics Group

Medical Statistical Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT

Southampton Women's Survey, Southampton SO16 7PX

Education and Research Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester M23 9LT

Medical Statistics, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh Medical School, Edinburgh EH8 9AG.

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