Box and Whisker Plots for Graphic Presentation of Audiometric Results of Conductive Hearing loss Treatment

Open Access

1 June 1998

journal article
research article
Published by Wiley in Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery

Vol. 118 (6) , 892-895
https://doi.org/10.1016/s0194-5998(98)70293-1

Abstract

The Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium of the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery has published guidelines for the reporting of audiometric results of middle ear interventions. It recommends the reporting of several audiometric variables by means of two summary parameters: means and standard deviation. This article advocates the use of other summary statistics, namely the median, quartiles, and extremes, because they do not require a normal distribution of the audiometric data and they are not sensitive to variations of the extreme values. On the basis of the exploratory data analysis, we propose a graphic method to present the Committee's variables in terms of their summary statistics. This “multiple box and whisker plot” offers a detailed and accurate overview of six variables in one graph. (Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1998;118:892–5.)

Keywords

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:

Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium Guidelines for the Evaluation of Results of Treatment of Conductive Hearing Loss^∗
Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery, 1995