This volume covers classic as well as cutting-edge topics on the
analysis of clinical trial data in biomedical and psychosocial research
and discusses each topic in an expository and user-friendly fashion. The
intent of the book is to provide an overview of the primary statistical
and data analytic issues associated with each of the selected topics,
followed by a discussion of approaches for tackling such issues and
available software packages for carrying out analyses. While classic
topics such as survival data analysis, analysis of diagnostic test data
and assessment of measurement reliability are well known and covered in
depth by available topic-specific texts, this volume serves a different
purpose: it provides a quick introduction to each topic for
self-learning, particularly for those who have not done any formal
coursework on a given topic but must learn it due to its relevance to
their multidisciplinary research. In addition, the chapters on these
classic topics will reflect issues particularly relevant to modern
clinical trials such as longitudinal designs and new methods for
analyzing data from such study designs.
The coverage of these topics provides a quick introduction to these
important statistical issues and methods for addressing them. As with
the classic topics, this part of the volume on modern topics will enable
researchers to grasp the statistical methods for addressing these
emerging issues underlying modern clinical trials and to apply them to
their research studies.
