Page 27 - Recommendations-for-biostatisticians-in-managing-and-conducting-medical-research-consultations

5.2 To be frank with the research client prior to

offering a biostatistical consultation

During a biostatistical consultation session, a biostatistician should be frank with the
research client and inform whether or not he/she is familiar with the subject matter
or/and the choice of statistical techniques, etc. It is acceptable to take a quick reading
around the subject during the consultation or even liaise with senior biostatistician or a
biostatistical mentor whenever necessary. In other circumstances where the biostatistician
requires more time to acquire other relevant skills or techniques, it is necessary for
him/her to request the research client to allow more time to prepare for this biostatistical
consultation, and then to fix another appointment at a later date when the biostatistician
will be ready to provide a biostatistical consultation. Normally, the research client will
usually accede to this request, and also willing to offer further clarification about the
research proposal if the biostatistician wants to seek further clarification from him/her.

One of the important strategies which is designed to enable a biostatistician to
prepare for a biostatistical consultation is to get to know the research client’s
expectation(s) before the consultation. This can be done by reviewing the research
client’s draft proposal or an initial input provided by the research client (such as the
area in which the research client is seeking assistance to plan for, for example:
research design, sampling technique, sample size, statistical analysis, etc.).

This means that the biostatistician will need to create an inventory of pertinent
information about the research proposal which the research client will have to provide
before he/she requests to fix an appointment for a biostatistical consultation. By doing so,
the biostatistician will be able to gather a list of pertinent information about the research
proposal when he/she is reading the preliminary input given by the research client, which
will then enable a biostatistician to know beforehand how to prepare for the consultation.

For example, if a research client is planning to conduct a questionnaire validation study
on a study instrument “A” and he/she is consulting a biostatistician on the statistical
analysis(es) required for the study. So, after having learnt about this requirement, a
biostatistician will proceed to study the manual of the questionnaire development for
instrument “A” (which can often be found in the website or in the existing literature or may
also be provided by the research client him/herself). Therefore, by doing this, a
biostatistician will have a rough idea which type(s) of statistical analysis(es) is/are
required, and whether or not he/she is well versed with the techniques for such
analysis(es). If necessary, a biostatistician can do further reading, or conferring with
his/her colleagues about these statistical analysis(s), in order to prepare for the
biostatistical consultation.