Commonly Used Statistical Methods in Occupational Therapy Research.

Abstract

Importance: Current barriers exist that affect occupational therapy students' and practitioners' ability to understand statistical methods and translate knowledge into their clinical work.

Objective: To determine which statistical methods are most commonly used in the occupational therapy literature and, consequently, which methods are most critical to include in occupational therapy curricula to equip students to be better consumers of occupational therapy literature and implement evidence in practice.

Design: A thorough analysis of 1,223 journal articles across 13 core occupational therapy journals. The most common statistical methods from the core journals were recorded.

Outcomes and measures: The frequencies and percentages of each statistical method that were reported were calculated, and the top 25 statistical methods were ranked.

Results: The analysis revealed that the top statistical methods included descriptive statistics, t tests, confidence intervals, χ2, effect size, analysis of variance, parametric correlations, Cronbach's α, post hoc analysis and pairwise comparisons, and thematic analysis and coding.

Conclusions and relevance: The study determined the top 25 statistical methods used in the core occupational therapy literature. Occupational therapy educational programs can use this study as guidance for the inclusion of statistical content in their respective programs. Plain-Language Summary: This study was conducted to determine which statistical methods are most commonly used in occupational therapy research. We reviewed 13 key occupational therapy journals and identified the 25 most frequently used methods. These results can help improve how statistics is taught in occupational therapy programs.