Summary
The confidence interval provides a range of possibilities for the population value instead of an arbitrary categorization based only on statistical significance. It conveys more information at the expense of precision of the P value.
The actual P value is helpful in addition to the confidence interval, and preferably both should be presented. However, if one must be excluded, it should be the P value.
It is possible to calculate the confidence interval for a variety of point estimates.
The width of confidence intervals has an inverse relationship with sample size.
Confidence intervals should be reported instead of standard errors.
Confidence intervals can be used to determine statistical significance in biostatistics and epidemiology.
Useful Links:
Links to previous articles on Null Hypothesis Significance Testing:
Link to Part 1 of the series:
Link to Part 2 of the series:
Link to Part 3 of the series:
Link to Part 4 of the series:
communitymedicine4all 