Increased police patrols for preventing alcohol-impaired driving.

Background: Road traffic injuries cause 1.2 million deaths worldwide each year. Alcohol consumption increases the risk of traffic crashes, especially fatal crashes.

Treatment of worker's compensation cases of carpal tunnel syndrome: an outcome study.

The primary goal of this retrospective study was to determine the most effective treatment protocol to return worker's compensation patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) to their original jobs. By examining a homogeneous subject pool and using specific, functional outcome measures determined by what is needed to reduce worker's compensation costs, a treatment protocol could be developed benefiting both the employer and employee. A total of 121 charts of worker's compensation patients with diagnoses of work-related CTS were reviewed.

Single-factor repeated-measures designs: analysis and interpretation.

In this column we discussed the selection and interpretation of appropriate statistical tests for single-factor within-subjects/ repeated-measures designs and provided an example from the literature. The parametric tests that we discussed were the t test for paired or correlated samples and the single-factor repeated-measures ANOVA. We also mentioned four nonparametric tests to be used in single-factor within-subjects/repeated-measures designs, but they are relatively rare in the literature.

Selection of inferential statistics: an overview.

This column serves as an introduction to selection of appropriate statistical methods. In the next five columns we will discuss conceptually, and in more depth, these statistical methods. We will use clinical examples and discuss why the author(s) selected a particular statistical method and how the results of the statistical method were interpreted.

General design classifications.

This column described the general design classifications of between-groups, within-subjects, and mixed designs. Remember that in between-groups designs, each participant is in only one group or condition. In within-subjects or repeated-measures designs, on the other hand, each participant receives all the conditions or levels of the independent variable.