Applied case · Healthcare and clinical research · about 80 minutes

Evaluating a (fictional) blood-pressure trial

Analyse a randomised, placebo-controlled trial end to end: check the randomisation and the dropouts, choose the comparison that actually estimates the drug effect, quantify it with an interval and effect size, and weigh it against adverse events.

9 graded tasksUses Track 1: Statistical Thinking Uses Track 7: Estimation and Confidence Intervals Uses Track 8: Hypothesis Testing Uses Track 11: Experiments and A/B Testing

The brief

A small (fictional) pharmaceutical developer ran an 8-week randomised, double-blind trial of an antihypertensive tablet against placebo in 200 adults whose systolic blood pressure (SBP) was at least 140 mmHg at screening, across three clinics. The independent statistician's report goes to the steering committee, which must decide whether the results justify a larger, longer confirmatory trial — a commitment of several million riyals.

The pre-specified primary outcome is the change in SBP from baseline to week 8, compared between arms. The committee also wants to know about adverse events and about the 19 participants who left before week 8.

Scenario assumption. The (fictional) protocol states that a between-arm difference of at least 5 mmHg in SBP change would be worth confirming in a larger trial. That number is part of this exercise, not a clinical guideline: in real trials, what counts as a clinically meaningful change is set by clinicians and guidelines for the specific outcome and patient population, not by the statistician.

Your data: bp_trial (synthetic), one row per participant: clinic, arm, age, sex, baseline and week-8 SBP, adverse-event flag and dropout flag.

This trial, its drug, clinics and participants are entirely fictional. Nothing here is medical evidence or advice.

Dataset

Blood-pressure drug trial (fictional)

200 rows · one row = one trial participant · synthetic data

About this dataset Open in the lab

Participant	Clinic	Arm	Age (years)	Sex	Baseline SBP (mmHg)	Week-8 SBP (mmHg)	Adverse event	Dropped out
P001	Clinic 1	Treatment	56	Female	158	146	false	false
P002	Clinic 2	Placebo	80	Male	152	139	false	false
P003	Clinic 3	Placebo	63	Female	177	missing	false	true
P004	Clinic 1	Treatment	51	Male	153	142	false	false
P005	Clinic 2	Placebo	50	Female	167	157	false	false
P006	Clinic 3	Treatment	55	Male	154	144	false	false

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This case has 4 stages and 9 graded tasks, ending with a written report.

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