Question

Suppose you’re a doctor and you read a headline in a newspaper that says a particular dietary supplement decreases blood pressure with p = 0.01. The supplement is generally safe but sometimes causes unpleasant side effects. Assuming this is all you know, answer the questions below.

a) What does this headline mean? Incorporate the definition of p-value into your answer.

b) Should you recommend the supplement to patients with high blood pressure? Why or why not? Give at least two distinct reasons to support your decision.

c) Would your answer change if you read the headline in the journal ​Science?​ Defend your answer.

Answer 1

a)=Headline means top of the newspaper or that gives a complete view of the overall content of the news related to the headline or we can say it is a summary view. From a statistian point of view if i saw p value=0.01 in the headline then i immidiately takie a decision without reading that content because it is definetly a testing value,p=0.01 indicates that if we have 100 samples then out of 100 i got 99 are those who give correct information and i am sure to say that the given information is right i should accept this.

b)= Yes i must recommend the suppliment to the patients that have high blood pressure ,because the given p value indicate that if i had 100 patients and i gave them this suppliment to them, then out of 100 it worked on 99 means it decrease the blood pressure of 99 patients.so i can say it must work because i have only 1% chance to be failed otherwise i certainly got right information. From a statistian point of view i can say that this suppliment will work on the patients that have high blood pressure .

c)= No,i would not change my answer ,because i know this is a tested result .smalll p value indiacte that my null hypothesis is accepted or correct .from this question point of view i can say that this suppliment must work on the patients that have high blood pressure . more probably if we can have confidence interval than we certainly justify our answer with ore accurate way.