Sample size determination for health psychology interventions with binomially distributed outcomes

J Health Psychol. 2010 Sep;15(6):871-5. doi: 10.1177/1359105309356985. Epub 2010 May 7.

Abstract

Health intervention outcomes are often assessed as binomially distributed variables. In designing such interventions it is important to model the pre-intervention rate of the target behavior when performing sample size calculations. Unfortunately, the majority of sample size programs model post-intervention outcomes only, which results in exaggerated sample size estimates. An exception is Yoo and Spoth's (1993) conditional binomial method of sample size determination. This approach explicitly models pre-intervention behavior by focusing on baserate-adjusted post-intervention outcomes, and always results in smaller sample size estimates than conventional approaches. Advantages of the conditional binomial method are discussed and user-friendly software is presented.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Behavioral Medicine / statistics & numerical data*
  • Binomial Distribution*
  • Health Promotion
  • Humans
  • Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / methods
  • Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / statistics & numerical data
  • Research Design
  • Risk Reduction Behavior
  • Sample Size*