How to Compare the Length of Stay of Two Samples of Inpatients? A Simulation Study to Compare Type I and Type II Errors of 12 Statistical Tests

Emmanuel Chazard (1) , Grégoire Ficheur (1) , Jean-Baptiste Beuscart (1) , Cristian Preda (2)

1 METRICS - Evaluation des technologies de santé et des pratiques médicales - ULR 2694
2 MODAL - MOdel for Data Analysis and Learning

Although many researchers in the field of health economics and quality of care compare the length of stay (LOS) in two inpatient samples, they often fail to check whether the sample meets the assumptions made by their chosen statistical test. In fact, LOS data show a highly right-skewed, discrete distribution in which most of the observations are tied; this violates the assumptions of most statistical tests.

Domaines: Applications [stat.AP]; Méthodologie [stat.ME]

Emmanuel Chazard, Grégoire Ficheur, Jean-Baptiste Beuscart, Cristian Preda. How to Compare the Length of Stay of Two Samples of Inpatients? A Simulation Study to Compare Type I and Type II Errors of 12 Statistical Tests. Value in Health, 2017, 20 (7), pp.992 - 998. ⟨10.1016/j.jval.2017.02.009⟩. ⟨hal-01655463⟩