Page 23 - PATIENT REGISTRY DATA FOR RESEARCH: A Basic Practical Guide

2.4 Prepare a Dummy Table for Statistical Analysis

After having obtained consent from all the relevant authorities, and also assessed the

feasibility of establishing the registry (i.e. by ensuring a sufficiently high quality of data

collected by an adequate sample size of the registry data), then the subsequent step is to

prepare a dummy table which displays the overall format and structure of layout of the results

to be presented. Dummy tables are actually empty tables containing only the variable items

along with their statistical measures, and which will only be filled by actual data after data

analysis has been performed (see Figure 2.1).

Using the analogy of building a house – constructing a dummy table for a data set is

similar to drawing a schematic plan for the house. In other words, the dummy table shall

display the probable final output of a data set which is designed to answer the objective(s) of

the study. A dummy table can be designed as long as all the variable items and their units of

measurement, along with the specific statistical analyses to be conducted on the variables are

known (for example: to measure age in years and then to calculate its mean and its standard

deviation).

Researchers will first have to decide the appropriate statistical measures to be reported

and then to select the best format to present the results in a most informative way. An

important way to get some idea of how to prepare a dummy table is to adopt the overall

structure and format of dummy tables which commonly appear in previous research

publications, which are often found in standard research reports or scientific journals. In

addition, there are also some standard ways of designing a dummy table for presenting both

descriptive and inferential statistics which have already been proposed by scholars (Lang &

Secic, 1997).

A good dummy table serves several important functions, namely : (i) to confirm that

the stated hypothesis/objective is doable and achievable, (ii) to provide a template for