Data and Statistics

The purpose of most studies is to collect data to obtain information about a particular area of research. Our data comprise observations on one or more variables; any quantity that varies is termed a variable. For example, we may collect basic clinical and demographic information on patients with a particular illness. The variables of interest may include the sex, age and height of the patients.

Our data are usually obtained from a sample of individuals which represents the population of interest. Our aim is to condense these data in a meaningful way and extract useful information from them. Statistics encompasses the methods of collecting, summarizing, analysing and drawing conclusions from the data: we use statistical techniques to achieve our aim.

Data may take many different forms. We need to know what form every variable takes before we can make a decision regarding the most appropriate statistical methods to use. Each variable and the resulting data will be one of two types: categorical or numerical (Fig. 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Diagram showing the different types of variable.

Categorical (Qualitative) Data

These occur when each individual can only belong to one of a number of distinct categories of the variable.

• Nominal data – the categories are not ordered but simply have names. Examples include blood group (A, B, AB and O) and marital status (married/widowed/single, etc.). In this case, there is no reason to suspect that being married is any better (or worse) than being single!
  
• Ordinal data – the categories are ordered in some way. Examples include disease staging systems (advanced, moderate, mild, none) and degree of pain (severe, moderate, mild, none).

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