This course outline has been prepared primarily for the postgraduate students, residents, fellows, and specialists in Jordan. However, the course may be of benefit for the entire spectrum of people working in the field of health sciences including medicine, pharmacy, public health, nursing, and allied health sciences. Although textbooks in epidemiology and in biostatistics are widely available, they are often highly specialized and therefore difficult to use by a wide range of health researchers and scientists. This course is intended to be simple and practical avoiding unnecessary scientific jargon and responding to the actual needs of students and researchers in the field of health sciences. Despite the increasing availability of computers and statistical software, most available books, if not all, still ignore these facts and make little use of the available technology. In this course, we will try to bridge this gap and explain how to use the computer to perform the needed statistical analysis. Practical training on two of the commonly used statistical packages, Epi Info and SPSS, should be considered an essential part of the course.
At the end of this course we expect that the student will have the basic knowledge and skills to:
1- Formulate research question/questions.
2- Propose an appropriate research design.
3- Draw a representative and appropriate sample from a certain population using the appropriate sampling technique
4- Select appropriate data collection methods.
5- Collect, organize, summarize and present data related to health sciences
6- Present his data in tables, graphs, and charts as appropriate.
7- Plan and perform the necessary statistical analysis.
8- Estimate population parameters (means and proportions) with high reliability based on the information contained in the sample.
9- Test any hypothesis about the population parameters.
10- Interpret his findings and draw valid conclusions.
11- Reach decisions about large body of data by examining only a small part of the data.
12- Draw scientific conclusions from data.
In addition, a major goal for the course is to strengthen the ability of students to critically read the literature and identify possible pitfalls.