Question

Clinical Trial When XELJANZ (tofacitinib) was administered as part of a clinical trial for this rheumatoid arthritis treatment, 1336 subjects were given 5 mg doses of the drug, and here are the numbers of adverse reactions: 57 had headaches, 21 had hypertension, 60 had upper respiratory tract infections, 51 had nasopharyngitis, and 53 had diarrhea. Does any one of these adverse reactions appear to be much more common than the others? (Hint: Find the relative frequencies using only the adverse reactions, not the total number of treated subjects.)

Answer 1

Answer:

Relative frequencies:

Headaches = 23.55 %

Hypertension = 8.68%

Upper respiratory tract infections =24.79%

Nasopharyngitis = 21.07

Diarrhea = 21.09%

None of these adverse reactions appear to be much more common than the others.

Step-by-step explanation:

Compute frequency:

The number of adverse reactions categories:

Headaches

Hypertension

Upper respiratory tract infections

Nasopharyngitis

Diarrhea

Frequency of each adverse reaction:

Adverse reaction                                Frequency        

Headaches                                                 57                    

Hypertension                                              21

Upper respiratory tract infections             60

Nasopharyngitis                                          51

Diarrhea                                                       53

Compute total frequency

Total frequency is compute dby taking sum of all frequencies;

Sum of frequencies = 57 + 21 + 60 + 51 + 53

                                 = 242

Compute relative frequency:

In order to find if any one of these adverse reactions appear to be much more common than the others, we have to compute relative frequency using these adverse reactions.

By calculating relative frequency we are looking at the number of times a specific adverse reaction appears to be more common, compared to the others.

To calculate relative frequency, divide the frequency of each adverse reaction by the total frequency i.e. 242.

Relative frequency for Headache = 57 / 242

                                                        = 0.2355

                                                        = 23.55 %

Relative frequency for Hypertension = 21 / 242

                                                             = 0.0868

                                                             = 8.68 %

Relative frequency for Upper respiratory tract infections = 60 / 242

                                                                                              = 0.2497

                                                                                              = 24.97 %

Relative frequency for Nasopharyngitis = 51 / 242

                                                                  = 0.2107

                                                                   = 21.07 %

Relative frequency for Diarrhea    = 53 / 242

                                                        = 0.2190

                                                         = 21.90 %

If you observe the relative frequencies of all the adverse reactions, none of them appear to be much more common than the others. Relative frequencies of headaches, upper respiratory tract infections, nasopharyngitis and diarrhea are almost equally common however, relative of hypertension appears to be very less than the other three.