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Comment
. 2019 Jul;30(7):1147-1150.
doi: 10.1681/ASN.2019010057. Epub 2019 Jun 17.

Compromising Outcomes

Peter B Imrey  1   2   3
Affiliations
Comment

Compromising Outcomes

Peter B Imrey. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2019 Jul.
No abstract available

Keywords: clinical trials; data dredging; multiple testing; p-hacking; publication guidelines; research ethics.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
At least six strategies are available for error control of multiple simultaneous hypothesis tests within the clinical research literature’s prevalent “frequentist” approach to statistical inference. The group on the left indicates four ways by which multiple comparison concerns in analyses of clinical trial data may be assuaged by reducing the number of formal statistical hypothesis tests that are simultaneously considered: omnibus testing of composite hypotheses, formation and testing of composite outcomes, comparisons of trends or rates of change rather than individual times points in analyses of longitudinal repeated measures outcomes, and formation of outcome hierarchies in which decisions predicated on statistical significance of lower outcomes in the hierarchy require statistical significance of outcomes higher in the hierarchy. The group on the right indicates two ways by which multiple comparison concerns can be managed, without reducing the number of tests, by controlling error rates defined in terms of results of groups of tests rather than individual tests: control of the “familywise error rate” (i.e., of the chance that any member of the group will yield a statistically significant false positive result when all null hypotheses tested are true) and control of the “false discovery rate” (i.e., of the fraction of positive test results resulting from a larger group of tests that are false positives). All of these methods are frequently used, and combinations of them may be required to adequately control false positive inferences from clinical trials. HSD, honestly significant difference.
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Comment on

  • Quantity and Reporting Quality of Kidney Research.
    Chatzimanouil MKT, Wilkens L, Anders HJ. Chatzimanouil MKT, et al. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2019 Jan;30(1):13-22. doi: 10.1681/ASN.2018050515. Epub 2018 Dec 13. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2019. PMID: 30545982 Free PMC article.

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