This was my query:
Dear allstatters,
I have received the following query. I've recommended Rabe-Hesketh and
Everitt. Do you have any other ideas? Please reply to me and I'll
circulate replies to the list.
The query:
I've always wanted a book that I could go through on my own that would
walk me though some example clinical trial analyses that I could perform
on my computer. I learn by doing and as such want to practice things
like doing Cox proportional hazards analysis so that I can lock down all
the concepts. I was hoping there was a textbook around somewhere that
came with a statistics package in it that would teach concepts and then
provide examples that one could go through on the computer using the
provided software. Do you know of such a book/software practice
combination?
Martin
I replied to him
I am a Stata user and recommend Sophia Rabe-Hesketh and Brian Everitt:
"A handbook of statistical analyses using Stata" Chapman and Hall 1999.
The copy I have is for Stata 6 and we now have Stata 8, where the
graphics are quite different. Howveer, you can type "version 6" in
Stata and it thinks it is version 6 and it will all work.
My book "An introduction to medical statistics" is not tied to a
package, but has most of the data available on my website so you can try
the examples for yourself You can have a look on my website at several
sections. My other book would not be suitable.
I received the following from Allstat, thanks very much to all who
replied:
From: "LP Hunt, Child Health" <[log in to unmask]>
Not technically for 'clinical trials', there is an example based book
that deals with Cox PH (as well as logistic regression and LDA) in some
detail...
'Multivariable Analysis' by A R Feinstein, Yale Univ Press, 1996
From: "Joshi, Miland" <[log in to unmask]>
Your querent may find helpful Landau and Everitt's A handbook of
Statistical Analyses using SPSS. This requires SPSS, only available to
members of a university in practice. A second possibility is the
software package statsdirect, which is fairly cheap for what it can do,
available from www.statsdirect.com. It has a good help facility but
there is no book written on it so far as I know. A third alternative is
Peter Dalgaard's Introductory Statistics with R, which uses the
examples in Douglas Altman's Practical Statistics for Medical Research.
From: David McNulty [log in to unmask]
These books primarily teach how to use the SAS system but have
sufficient
references to more detailed texts.
Categorical Data Analysis using the SAS System
Maura E. Stokes
Charles S.Davis
Gary G. Koch
SAS System for Mixed Models
Raymon C. Littell
George A. Milliken
Walter W. Stroup
Russell D. Wolfinger
SAS System for Linear Models
Raymon C. Littell
Walter W. Stroup
Rudolf J. Freund
From: Pat Altham <[log in to unmask]>
I have to say I find Venables & Ripley's book (use in conjunction with
SPlus or R) the very best for the sort of learning you mention, but it
might be a bit daunting for non-mathematicians
From: M Tevfik Dorak <[log in to unmask]>
What about Bernard Rosner's Fundamentals of Biostatistics (with Data
Disk)? I found the previous edition very good and the current Fifth
Edition may be even better. It does not come with a statistics package
but all the datasets used in examples are provided.
From: "Nick Freemantle" <[log in to unmask]>
Actually I think that the SAS manuals do quite a nice job on this, but
it is not necessarily the language that your colleague might want to
learn. Alternatively the StatsDirect programme has a good and practical
help section with lots of examples, which might nicely supplement your
original suggestion.
From: Michael Dewey <[log in to unmask]>
If your colleague is willing to spend the effort then why not download R
and then either start with the free downloadable documentation (some of
which is quite high level) or buy one of the introductory books (a list
of which also appears on the R website http://www.r-project.org/). There
is a significant learning curve but the software is free and there is an
extremely helpful mailing list.
I hesitate to recommend books I have not read but from other people's
comments the three books by Dalgard, Fox, or Harrell might be relevant.
Venables and Ripley (which I have read) is authoritative but in places
very compact and so more suited to readers who already know more about
statistics.
From: Stephen Senn [log in to unmask]
SPlus
Krause and Olsen, The Basics of S and SPlus, Springer
Venables and Ripley, Modern Applied Statistics with SPlus
SAS
Cody and Smith, Applied Statistics and the SAS Programming Language,
Prentice Hall
Freund and Wilson, Regression Analysis, Academic Press (SAS based)
Genstat
McConway, Jones, Taylor, Statistical Modelling using Genstat
Excel
Berk and Carey, Data analysis with Excel
However, these do not have packages that come with them. But R is very
similar to S-Plus and can be downloaded free and the Berk and Carey book
has a free software add on for Excel.
--
***************************************************
J. Martin Bland
Prof. of Health Statistics
Dept. of Health Sciences
Seebohm Rowntree Building Area 2
University of York
Heslington
York YO10 5DD
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 01904 321334
Fax: 01904 321382
Web site: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mb55/
***************************************************
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