ArticleCureus2021
Trends in the Usage of Statistical Software and Their Associated Study Designs in Health Sciences Research: A Bibliometric Analysis.
Article in Cureus, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 2 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
39 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
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- The majority of clinical trials assessing mobilization and manipulation for neck pain lack a pragmatic approach: a systematic review of 174 trials.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2024Pooled it
- Trial
- Patient-Centered Diabetes Care Through an Ethical Lens: Associations with Patient Satisfaction and Patient-Reported Outcomes in Saudi Primary Healthcare.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Analysis of the factors influencing the treatment zone area after overnight orthokeratology lens wearing.Journal of optometry · 2026Article
- Statistical Competence and Editorial Policies in Biomedical Publications.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Review
- Using LLM-generated tools to extract information about reporting statistical software in biomedical and health science research articles.BMC research notes · 2026Article
- Tuberculosis Preceding Lung Cancer: A Contemporary Meta-Analysis Revealing a Critical Gap in Post-2020 Evidence.Cancers · 2026Review
- Statistical software reporting in dental research: an evaluation of current practices.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Review
- Frailty, socioeconomic factors, and nutritional biomarkers in patients with nondialysis chronic kidney disease: A cross-sectional analysis.The Journal of international medical research · 2026Article
- Medication belief profiles and associated factors in patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis: a latent class analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Market Diversification and Mango Exports in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Peru and Colombia, 2004-2024.F1000Research · 2026Article
- Article
- BiInferApp: A Shiny Application for Bidirectional Inference between P-values and Confidence Intervals for epidemiological measures of effects in R software.Malawi medical journal : the journal of Medical Association of Malawi · 2025Article
- Exploring the personal and professional outcomes of pursuing fellowship training in orthopedic manual physical therapy: a mixed-methods analysis.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2025Article
- Article
- Rethinking the production and publication of machine-readable expressions of research findings.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Development of HIV Drug-Resistance Mutations and Antiretroviral Efficacy Among Vietnamese Patients After Failure of 5-Year First-Line Therapy.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2025Observational
- Ten Simple Rules for Making a Career Transition from Basic Science to Public Health Research.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Analysing seasonal rainfall trends in the Cuvelai-Etosha Basin 1968-2018.Jamba (Potchefstroom, South Africa) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background The development of statistical software in research has transformed the way scientists and researchers conduct their statistical analysis. Despite these advancements, it was not clear which statistical software is mainly used for which research design thereby creating confusion and uncertainty in choosing the right statistical tools. Therefore, this study aimed to review the trend of statistical software usage and their associated study designs in articles published in health sciences research. Methods This bibliometric analysis study reviewed 10,596 articles published in PubMed in three 10-year intervals (1997, 2007, and 2017). The data were collected through Google sheet and were analyzed using SPSS software. This study described the trend and usage of currently available statistical tools and the different study designs that are associated with them. Results Of the statistical software mentioned in the retrieved articles, SPSS was the most common statistical tool used (52.1%) in the three-time periods followed by SAS (12.9%) and Stata (12.6%). WinBugs was the least used statistical software with only 40(0.6%) of the total articles. SPSS was mostly associated with observational (61.1%) and experimental (65.3%) study designs. On the other hand, Review Manager (43.7%) and Stata (38.3%) were the most statistical software associated with systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Conclusion In this study, SPSS was found to be the most widely used statistical software in the selected study periods. Observational studies were the most common health science research design. SPSS was associated with observational and experimental studies while Review Manager and Stata were mostly used for systematic reviews and meta-analysis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.