4.1 Quick revision

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A study of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in adults with Down Syndrome (de Carvalho et al. 2020) had \(n = 60\) adults (\(27\) females; \(33\) males) undergo a sleep study. The data are shown in Fig. 4.1.

1. Which of these would be an inappropriate numerical summary for the age of the participants?
   Median Mean Odds Standard deviation
2. What might be an appropriate way to numerically describe the amount of variation in the ages of participants?
   
   Standard deviation Median Mean Odds
3. What might be an appropriate way to numerically describe the average Respiratory Event Index (REI) of participants?
   
   Standard deviation Median Odds Percentages
4. What might be an appropriate way to numerically describe the gender of the participants?
   
   Standard deviation Median IQR Percentages
5. In the sample of \(n = 60\), what percentage of individuals are females?
   
   0.45 45% 0.55 55% 1.22 0.82
6. In the sample of \(n = 60\), what are the odds that an individual is female?
   
   0.45 45% 0.55 55% 1.22 0.82

1. Age is quantitative, so odds are not appropriate (odds are used with qualitative data).
2. Variation is measured using standard deviation or IQR.
3. The average value (of a quantitative variable) can be described using a mean or a median.
4. Percentages or odds can be used to numerically summarise a qualitative variable like gender.
5. \(27/60\times 100 = 45\)%.
6. \(27/33 = 0.8181\).

FIGURE 4.1: The Obstructive sleep apnoea data set

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References

de Carvalho AA, Amorim FF, Santana LA, de Almeida KJQ, Santana ANC, Neves F de AR. STOP-Bang questionnaire should be used in all adults with Down Syndrome to screen for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea. PloS ONE. 2020;15(5):e0232596.

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