Data analysis and documentation of statistics in biomedical research papers in Albania

The statistical part is an essential ingredient of any research study. The research methodology and application of statistical methods have developed rapidly over the years and have significantly improved the research activities in every field of study. In this paper, is presented an evaluation of statistical methods used in 49 scientific papers, published in biomedical sciences journals in Albania from 2012 to 2016. Based on this review, 31 papers (63.3% of 49) presented numerical results and aimed significance with no statistical analysis performed. Majority of studies which performed statistical analysis (83.3 % of 18 papers) failed to prove test assumptions. In 38.9% of cases there was no explicit statement of the tested Null-Hypotheses. Multivariable techniques to adjust for confounding factors were absent in all papers in which the multivariate analysis was necessary to arrive to conclusions. In many papers (61.1% of cases) the statistical tests used were not specified and defined correctly. Failure to state degrees of freedom was also very common. In these circumstances there is high evidence that the statistical reviewing of biomedical sciences journals has strong deficiencies and must be improved as much aspossible.