Featured This Month
Evaluation of Proposed Protocol Changing Statistical Significance From 0.05 to 0.005 in Foot and Ankle Randomized Controlled Trials
In 2018, a group of 72 methodologists suggested shifting the p value threshold from the commonly accepted .05 convention to .005, and p values between .05 and .005 would be labeled “suggestive” (1). By increasing the stringency of statistical significance, the risk of false positives would decrease across the medical literature. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard of medical literature because of their status as Level 1 evidence. RCTs commonly report p values for statistically significant outcomes, and, as a result, are also prone to misinterpretation. Misinterpretation of p values in RCTs is problematic since these studies serve as the evidentiary base for high-level recommendations in clinical practice guidelines. By implementing the p value shift proposed by Benjamin et al (1) to RCTs, more accurate interpretations of results can potentially be made.