Two-sided confidence intervals for the single proportion: comparison of seven methods by Robert G. Newcombe, Statistics in Medicine 1998; 17:857-872.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Steven A Julious.
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This article gives an overview of sample size calculations for parallel group and cross-over studies with Normal data. Sample size derivation is given for trials where the objective is to demonstrate: superiority, equivalence, non-inferiority, bioequivalence and estimation to a given precision, for different types I and II errors. It is demonstrated how the different trial objectives influence the null and alternative hypotheses of the trials and how these hypotheses influence the calculations. Sample size tables for the different types of trials and worked examples are given.
One of the most important steps in the design of a pharmaceutical clinical trial is the estimation of the sample size. For a superiority trial the sample size formula (to achieve a stated power) would be based on a given clinically meaningful difference and a value for the population variance. The formula is typically used as though this population variance is known whereas in reality it is unknown and is replaced by an estimate with its associated uncertainty. The variance estimate would be derived from an earlier similarly designed study (or an overall estimate from several previous studies) and its precision would depend on its degrees of freedom. This paper provides a solution for the calculation of sample sizes that allows for the imprecision in the estimate of the sample variance and shows how traditional formulae give sample sizes that are too small since they do not allow for this uncertainty with the deficiency being more acute with fewer degrees of freedom. It is recommended that the methodology described in this paper should be used when the sample variance has less than 200 degrees of freedom.