Research Designs and Statistical Methods in Myanmar Health Sciences Research Journal: A Review of Articles Published during 2010 to 2019

Aim: Several reviews had been reported on the design and statistics of medical journals worldwide. However, assessment on the quality of research articles in a peer-reviewed health research journal locally widely published in Myanmar has never been carried out.

Study Design: Retrospective cross sectional study.

Methodology: The research designs and statistical procedures used in all research articles (n=391) published in the Myanmar Health Sciences Research Journal (MHSRJ) from 2010 to 2019 were studied using a standardized checklist.

Results: Among the publications, commonly used study designs were descriptive (cross-sectional) studies (n=191,49%) and basic science (laboratory-based) studies (n=129, 33%). The remaining were analytical observational studies (n=49, 12%) and clinical trials (n=22, 6%). Statistical analysis was not carried out in 89 studies (22%) of the published articles as the data generated from those studies were mainly qualitative data. Parametric data analysis methods were used in 206 papers (64%). Most of the statistical methods used were basic statistics, contingency table analyses, epidemiological statistics, t-test, correlation and regression analysis, totaling 77% of the statistically tests. Assumption was not mentioned in 60% of papers using non-parametric analysis. Although, it was observed that over 92% (n=363) of the articles fully reported the sampling unit and study area/site, only a few (16%, n=57) mentioned the sample size calculation.

Conclusion: Our findings indicated that a reader with knowledge on descriptive statistics, analysis of contingency tables, epidemiological methods, t – tests and regression analysis will then have complete statistical access to 77% of the articles published in the MHSRJ. Deficiencies in the research design and statistical analysis need to be corrected for the improvement in the quality of articles.