The Statistical versus Clinical Significance Debate

There is general agreement that tests of statistical significance do not provide information about the clinical significance or practical importance of research results. Yet the concept of clinical significance has received little discussion or debate in the nursing literature. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast statistical and clinical significance, to provide an overview of the issues surrounding their uses as described in the methodological literature from a variety of disciplines, and to discuss some implications of these concepts for nursing research.