ReviewAnesthesia and analgesia2018
Statistical Significance Versus Clinical Importance of Observed Effect Sizes: What Do P Values and Confidence Intervals Really Represent?
Review in Anesthesia and analgesia, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Chronic Anticoagulation in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation and COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Arquivos brasileiros de cardiologia · 2024Pooled it
- The Effects of Ramadan Intermittent Fasting on Football Players and Implications for Domestic Football Leagues Over the Next Decade: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2022Pooled it
- Variability and effect sizes of intracranial current source density estimations during pain: Systematic review, experimental findings, and future perspectives.Human brain mapping · 2021Pooled it
- Pre-hospital transfusion of red blood cells. Part 2: A systematic review of treatment effects on outcomes.Transfusion medicine (Oxford, England) · 2020Pooled it
- Laser acupuncture improves cortical excitability and behavioural performance in healthy individuals: a randomized controlled trial.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Trial
- A Culturally and Linguistically Tailored Intervention to Improve Diabetes-Related Outcomes in Chinese Americans With Type 2 Diabetes: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Trial
- Influence of ozonized water on pain, oedema, and trismus during impacted third molar surgery: a randomized, triple blind clinical trial.BMC oral health · 2020Trial
- Effects of post-scenario debriefing versus stop-and-go debriefing in medical simulation training on skill acquisition and learning experience: a randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2019Trial
- Enhancing Statistical Competence in Andrology: Outcomes of an Online Medical Statistics Training Program.The world journal of men's health · 2026Article
- Prospective association between baseline ultra-processed food consumption and future adherence to the 24-h movement guidelines in children: findings from the SENDO project.European journal of pediatrics · 2026Article
- Current methods for analyzing time-series patient-generated health data to assess treatment response: a scoping review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2026Article
- Ten common mistakes that could ruin your enrichment analysis.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Trazodone effectiveness in depression (TED): a comparative evaluation of effect sizes trazodone extended release and SSRIs in the treatment of major depressive disorder.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Lumbar Sympathetic Radiofrequency Ablation for Peripheral Arterial Disease: Considerations Regarding Patient Selection and Interpretation of Short-Term Outcomes [Letter].Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Experimental Pain Model Based on Short-Wave Diathermy Replicates the Intensity, Quality and Spatial Distribution of Chronic Shoulder Pain: A Parallel Group Validation Study.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Article
- Association between rapid opioid reduction or discontinuation and self-harm, suicide attempt, and suicide death among patients receiving high-dose, long-term opioid therapy in North Carolina, 2006-2018.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Identification and Validation of Biomarkers to Predict Early Diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Its Progression to Colorectal Cancer.Biochemical genetics · 2025Article
- Research methods in genetic counseling: Statistical approaches and resources.Journal of genetic counseling · 2025Article
- P Value Reporting and Reliability in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: A Primer for Readers and Investigators.Plastic and reconstructive surgery · 2025Article
- Mortality Associated with Surgical Site Infections Following Cardiac Surgery: Insights from the International ID-IRI Study.IJID regions · 2025Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Effect size measures are used to quantify treatment effects or associations between variables. Such measures, of which >70 have been described in the literature, include unstandardized and standardized differences in means, risk differences, risk ratios, odds ratios, or correlations. While null hypothesis significance testing is the predominant approach to statistical inference on effect sizes, results of such tests are often misinterpreted, provide no information on the magnitude of the estimate, and tell us nothing about the clinically importance of an effect. Hence, researchers should not merely focus on statistical significance but should also report the observed effect size. However, all samples are to some degree affected by randomness, such that there is a certain uncertainty on how well the observed effect size represents the actual magnitude and direction of the effect in the population. Therefore, point estimates of effect sizes should be accompanied by the entire range of plausible values to quantify this uncertainty. This facilitates assessment of how large or small the observed effect could actually be in the population of interest, and hence how clinically important it could be. This tutorial reviews different effect size measures and describes how confidence intervals can be used to address not only the statistical significance but also the clinical significance of the observed effect or association. Moreover, we discuss what P values actually represent, and how they provide supplemental information about the significant versus nonsignificant dichotomy. This tutorial intentionally focuses on an intuitive explanation of concepts and interpretation of results, rather than on the underlying mathematical theory or concepts.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.