Page 16 - Recommendations-for-biostatisticians-in-managing-and-conducting-medical-research-consultations

3.3 Third question: Has the research question

been previously considered or is it pioneering a

new branch of study?

Ideally, the research client with supervision by his/her supervisor or consultant should be
able to answer this question. It is indeed their responsibility after having obtained a
preliminary understanding of the subject matter by conducting an adequate literature
review of the subject prior to the formulation of the research question(s). What the
biostatistician will need to do now is to make sure the research client has a sound and valid
justification for their proposed research area and research question(s). There are perhaps
only two possible answers to this question, namely: either “yes” or “no”. However,
regardless of whether the answer is a “yes” or a “no”, it will always affect how the
subsequent statistical consultation session will proceed.

Most of the time, the preferred answer to this question is usually “yes” as it will
ensure that the proposed research topic and also its scope of research are both
highly relevant since many previous scholars had already agreed upon the
significance of this proposed study area, and many research findings had already
been published widely in this area. In this case, what the research client will have to
do next is to decide whether to delve further into the research area, either by
adopting the same previous research design and also its proposed statistical
analysis, or preferably by improvising the previous research design through taking
additional steps to further strengthen its research methodology and the proposed
statistical analysis.

On the other hand, if the answer to the third question is a “no”, then the biostatistician
will have to carefully consider the following two possibilities. First, the biostatistician will
have to decide whether the proposed study is truly pioneering a new branch of study or
whether the research client did not manage to elicit sufficient previously published
information about this proposed study because a preliminary evaluation of the existing
literature was not adequately performed. It will be more likely for the research clients not
to have conducted a comprehensive literature review of the topic if they are not a subject
matter expert in the relevant field and/or they have very little or no prior experience in
research. If this is indeed the case, then the biostatistician should advise the research
clients to first discuss the proposed research area with the subject matter experts in the
relevant field. For instance, the junior medical doctor in a surgical department may need to
first discuss about his/her research proposal with the surgical specialist or consultant
surgeon.

However, if it has been found that the proposed research is a truly pioneer study, then
the biostatistician can proceed by recommending the research client to identify other