Understanding screening results

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that the National Library for Health (www.library.nhs.uk) has covered an interesting study reported in the BMJ evaluating how screening tests can be misinterpreted by staff and patients. It's a study evaluating how obstetricians, midwives and women understand the results of a screening test for Down's syndrome in an antenatal setting.

You can see the full study at: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/333/7562/284

Best wishes,
Amanda x

Type I and type II errors

For those of you who wanted to know, Type I and type II errors are defined as:

Type I error
An error that occurs when a researcher rejects the null hypothesis when it is true and concludes that a statistically significant relationship/difference exists when it does not.

Type II error
An error that occurs when a researcher accepts the null hypothesis when it is false and concludes that no significant relationship/difference exists when it does.

Source: Glossary of research methods published by the University of Bath, UK. http://www.bath.ac.uk/e-learning/gold/glossary.html#N1984 Accessed 02-10-06

Thankyou

A big thank you to all of you who attended the two days at Poole House last week. John and I really enjoyed it and thought that you were a great group to work with. We will be publishing the evaluations and other bits and bobs on here and on the main website and we will let you know when we publish.

QOF data for all PCTs in England is now on the web: go to www.gpcontract.co.uk.

Hope you all had a good weekend - you worked hard!

Amanda