Reporting Incubation Periods

Descriptive Statistics

• The American Thoracic Society recommends using median and interquartile range (IQR) to express incubation period days for a small sample of subjects, as it provides a robust central tendency and captures meaningful spread 1, 2
• The median represents the 50th percentile and is not influenced by extreme values, making it ideal for skewed distributions like incubation periods 1, 2
• The interquartile range (25th to 75th percentile) describes the middle 50% of data and is resistant to outliers, providing a more accurate representation of typical variation 3, 4

Statistical Analysis

• The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery suggests that Pearson coefficient is not suitable for measuring the distribution of a single variable like incubation period 3
• The American College of Chest Physicians notes that t-test is an inferential statistical test for comparing means between groups, not a descriptive statistic for expressing data distribution 1