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The determination of whether there is a statistically significant difference between the two means is reported as a p-value. Typically, if the p-value is below a certain level usually 0. The lower the p-value, the greater "evidence" that the two group means are different.
The other commonly used type of t-test is the Paired t-test. In this case the subjects for the two groups are the same or matched. That is, the same subjects are observed twice, often with some intervention taking place between measures. One advantage of using the same subjects is that experimental variability if less than for the independent group case.
For example, the researcher may observe weight or cholesterol levels before and after a treatment has been applied. For this test the mean difference between the two repeated observations is observed and compared. If the difference is sufficiently great then there is evidence that the treatment caused some change in the observed variable. A paired t-test is performed and the observed difference between the groups is summarized in a p-value.
The benefits of performing a t-test is that it is easy to understand and generally easy to perform.
However, the fact that these tests are so widely used does not make them the correct analysis for all comparisons. There are a few caveats you should be aware of before performing these tests.
This version of the Independent group t-test takes into account the differences in variances and adjusts the p-value accordingly. In the case of Independent Groups, the nonparametric test usually performed is the Mann-Whitney test. For paired data that are not normally distributed, the Wilcoxen signed-rank test is usually performed. Furthermore, sometime researchers make the mistake of performing multiple t-test when there are more than two groups in their research.
This approach destroys the meaning of the p-value and results in erroneous conclusions about the data. The decision about what comparison test to use for a particular analysis is of vital importance to making unbiased and correct decisions about your research results.
Professional papers are often rejected when inappropriate tests are performed on research data. Regarding uncertainty e. As these stressors are presumably related to the medical problems in this speciality, it would be useful to investigate the role of resources both, situation- and person-related on stress-outcomes.
The results of the multiple regression analyses show that time pressure, frustration about how work needs to be done and emotional dissonance are related to different stress-outcomes. A prior study has already shown that time pressure is associated with a high feeling of stress in physicians [ 1 ]. The current results support this feeling perceived by physicians. The frustration about how work needs to be done means restrictions due to documentation and administration work.
At least for surgeons and internal physicians, these tasks take up about one third of daily working hours [ 5 ]. This illustrates once again how important the relationship between frustration and stress-outcomes is. Thus, it seems to be useful to reduce high levels of frustration. As the sample was relatively large, it was possible to compare eleven different specialities.
However, a selection bias cannot be excluded.
For example, it is possible that unusually stressed physicians took part in this survey. Despite that, the current sample corresponds to the physician statistics of the German Medical Association [ 21 ] and the German Federal Bureau of Statistics [ 22 ], with respect to age, gender and medical specialities.
Another advantage of this study is that it considers two potential stress-outcomes. Nevertheless, the relationships between stressors and health aspects should be interpreted with caution.
Because of the cross-sectional design, no causal interpretations are possible. Hints for causal conclusions can only be drawn from longitudinal studies or studies with experimental designs [ 25 ]. Although the current analyses focused only on stressors, a further emphasis on resources should be considered because work-related resources are found to be relevant to health as well [ 26 ], as mentioned in the transactional stress model of work and organizational psychology.
Various approaches will be discussed to reduce the stressors of hospital physicians during their daily work.
One way to handle social stressors with patients and their families can be found in reflecting these situations. To reduce the frustration about how work needs to be done, it may be advantageous to introduce personalised training of key qualifications for handling administrative work. At the organisational level, it would be useful to improve staff planning and to reduce documentation and administrative work.
One alternative could be to examine ways to facilitate the documentation and administrative tasks e.
The positive relationship between emotional dissonance the suppression or control of the emotions and emotional exhaustion has already been demonstrated for other professions, and high autonomy was shown to compensate the effects of high emotional dissonance [ 28 ]. For emotional exhaustion, problems in workflow due to other professional groups seem to be a relevant predictor. In order to reduce these problems, it seems to be useful to clarify the causes.
There might be organisational reasons that agreements cannot be kept. But difficulties might also be caused by social conflicts, which have been found to be a frequent problem for assistant physicians [ 1 ]. In order to identify causes, interdisciplinary and cross-hierarchical working groups could be an adequate method [ 29 ] e. The results of the current study demonstrated that hospital physicians experience certain work stressors differently with respect to their medical speciality. Therefore, stress prevention programs should consider these differences.
Additionally, the meaning of time pressure, frustration about how work needs to be done, and emotional dissonance for aspects of health was illustrated. Aside longitudinal studies are needed in order to verify these cross-sectional findings; these results suggest some approaches for health promoting improvements. Skip to main content Skip to sections. Advertisement Hide. Download PDF. Open Access.
First Online: 25 February Methods German hospital physicians were asked about their working conditions and aspects of health. Results Data from hospital physicians were included in the analyses.
An incomparably useful examination of statistical methods for comparison. The nature of doing science, be it natural or social, inevitably calls. An incomparably useful examination of statistical methods for comparison The nature of doing science, be it natural or social, inevitably calls for comparison.
Conclusions The results showed that some medical specialities are more affected by specific stressors. Background There have been several scientific studies on the working conditions of hospital physicians [ 1 - 7 ]. Sample Within the StArK project, hospital physicians throughout Germany were requested to evaluate their working conditions via questionnaire from February to December In sum, data were collected from German hospital physicians.
The response rate of the acquisition via hospitals was Additionally, with a response rate of After excluding groups smaller than ten participants e. Both samples are comparable with German physician statistics [ 21 , 22 ]. Table 1 Sample characteristics. Surgeons reported lower levels of frustration than physicians in internal medicine. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists reported lower levels of time pressure than physicians in internal medicine. Moreover, physicians in paediatrics rated uncertainty lower than physicians in anaesthesia and neurology. Neurologists rated uncertainty higher than did surgeons.
Physicians in radiology, anaesthesia, and in obstetrics and gynaecology rated social stressors significantly lower than did physicians in internal medicine, neurology, and in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Physicians in orthopaedics and rehabilitation rated social stressors higher than did physicians in radiology and anaesthesia. Surgeons gave also higher rates for social stressors than did physicians in anaesthesia. On the other hand, for the stressors problems in workflow due to physicians and other professional groups and emotional dissonance, there were no significant differences between the ratings in the medical specialities.