IHP 525 Milestone Three Table

For this milestone, in order to explore your health question you are investigating, you need to plan what descriptive statistics and statistical test you will need to run, as well as what graph you will need to create.

 

Step 1: Complete the table below in which you will propose the calculations and graph(s) you will need to perform to answer the health question you are investigating.

 

Question:	Answer:
What is your health (research) question?	To what extent does gender influence the length of hospital stays for MI patients?
What are the corresponding null and alternative hypotheses?	H0: There is no difference in length of stay for MI patients between gender. Ha: There is a statistically difference in length of stay for MI patients between gender.
List the descriptive statistics you will compute, using which variable(s), to help answer your health question.	1)      The mean of number of days spent in hospital for males and females. 2)      Standard deviation for number of days spent in hospital for males and females.
What is the name of the statistical test you will use to test your hypothesis and answer your health question?	Independent samples t-test
What is the formula for your chosen statistical test?	T =
Why is the statistical test you chose appropriate to answer your health question? Be sure to be clear on how the two variables you described in Milestone Two are used to complete this test.	Independent samples t-test is appropriate when comparing means of a continuous variable between two groups. In this case, the mean of LOS is compared between males and females.
Which graph(s) (histogram, stem and leaf, boxplot, bar graph, scatterplot) will you use to visualize the answer to your health question? Be specific and include which variables will be used and if the graph will be created for different subgroups of subjects.	A bar graph is suitable in this case where gender with be in the x-axis and number of days goes to the y-axis.

 

Step 2: Provide a one- to two-paragraph explanation below as to why you chose the calculations outlined in the table above to explore your health question.Describe what statistics you will compute in order to answer your chosen health (research) question. Be sure to discuss any graphs that you will compute and what information they will provide to help you answer your health question.

 

Solution

Independent samples t-test can be used in a case where the dependent variable is quantitative and the independent variable is categorical with 2 groups. The mean of number of days spent in hospital (LOS) will be calculated for both groups (males and females) in order to enable computation of the differences. The standard deviation is also calculated for both male and females’ length of stay. The t-statistics will be calculated using the formula given in the table where x-bars and s represents the calculated means and standard deviations for both groups. The critical value of t will be calculated to help in decision making. The degrees of freedom will be calculated to enable determining the critical value. The p-value will also be determined. All these calculations will help in determining whether the null hypothesis will be rejected or not.A bar graph will be computed which enables visual representation of the differences of the two groups (males and females) at a glance.