Clinical research course
Statistics for Non-Statisticians in Clinical Research
Making sense of clinical trial evidence: a practical workshop in statistical thinking.
Dates and booking
Choose your date.
All fees exclude VAT. Booking for several colleagues? Choose the number of participants, or ask about an in-house session.
Who it’s for
Is this course for you?
This course is for clinical research professionals who regularly encounter statistical results but don't perform the analyses themselves: clinical research associates, clinical project managers, data managers, medical writers, regulatory affairs and pharmacovigilance professionals, clinical operations staff, and investigators.
No mathematical formulas or statistical software are required. The emphasis throughout is on understanding concepts and applying statistical thinking to real-world clinical research.
What you’ll learn
About this course.
Course Description
Do you ever read a clinical trial publication and feel lost the moment the results turn to p-values, confidence intervals, and significance tests? This one-day training is built for clinical research professionals who work with data but have little or no formal background in statistics.
Rather than turning you into a statistician, this workshop develops the statistical thinking needed to understand and critically evaluate clinical trial evidence. Through practical examples and interactive discussion, you will learn why statistics is fundamental to evidence-based medicine, how study design influences the reliability of results, how to recognise common pitfalls, and how to interpret statistical findings with confidence. The emphasis throughout is on understanding concepts rather than performing calculations.
The goal is not to make you a statistician, but an informed consumer of statistical evidence.
Learning objectives
- Explain why statistical thinking is fundamental to evidence-based clinical research
- Understand how study design, randomisation and sample size influence the reliability of trial results
- Interpret common statistical concepts including p-values, confidence intervals and treatment effects
- Distinguish statistical significance from clinical relevance
- Critically interpret tables, figures and statistical results presented in clinical trial publications
- Ask informed questions when discussing statistical analyses with statisticians and other cross-functional colleagues
Programme highlights
- Why statistics matters in clinical research: understanding variability and uncertainty
- Populations, samples, study design, randomisation and bias
- What determines sample size in clinical trials (without the mathematics)
- Understanding descriptive statistics and interpreting data visualisations
- Statistical significance, confidence intervals and clinical relevance
- Reading the statistical story behind clinical trial tables, Kaplan-Meier curves and forest plots
- Understanding the impact of missing data and protocol deviations
- Critical appraisal of a published clinical trial using real-world examples
Throughout the workshop participants will work through interactive case studies, publication excerpts and real-world examples from drug development to reinforce key concepts and encourage discussion.
Your trainer
Your trainer.
Format
How the course runs.
Live online
09h00 - 17h00.
Competencies
What this course builds.
How many competencies of the ECCRT Competency Framework this course covers, by area.
- Scientific Concepts & Research Design3
- Data Management and Informatics2
Good to know
Questions about this course.
Can I book for several colleagues?
Yes. Choose the number of participants next to a date. For a group of 4 or more, an in-house session tailored to your SOPs may suit you better.
What if I need to cancel?
Cancelling more than 30 calendar days before the course is free of charge. Between 21 and 30 days before, 50% of the fee is due, and the full fee within 21 days. A €50 administration fee applies per cancellation. You can also send a colleague in your place by letting us know in writing.
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