

#Stata 13 software software
For most of the researchers, however, the key feature of their articles is the robustness and repeatability of their methods section particularly the design of the study and the type of statistical tests to employ. The emergency of statistical software has transformed the way scientists and researchers conducting their statistical analysis. With the evolution of open access in the publishing world, access to empirical research has never been more widespread than it is now. SPSS was associated with observational and experimental studies while Review Manager and Stata were mostly used for systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Observational studies were the most common health science research design. In this study, SPSS was found to be the most widely used statistical software in the selected study periods. On the other hand, Review Manager (43.7%) and Stata (38.3%) were the most statistical software associated with systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

SPSS was mostly associated with observational (61.1%) and experimental (65.3%) study designs. WinBugs was the least used statistical software with only 40(0.6%) of the total articles. Of the statistical software mentioned in the retrieved articles, SPSS was the most common statistical tool used (52.1%) in the three-time periods followed by SAS (12.9%) and Stata (12.6%). This study described the trend and usage of currently available statistical tools and the different study designs that are associated with them. The data were collected through Google sheet and were analyzed using SPSS software. This bibliometric analysis study reviewed 10,596 articles published in PubMed in three 10-year intervals (1997, 2007, and 2017). Therefore, this study aimed to review the trend of statistical software usage and their associated study designs in articles published in health sciences research. Despite these advancements, it was not clear which statistical software is mainly used for which research design thereby creating confusion and uncertainty in choosing the right statistical tools. The development of statistical software in research has transformed the way scientists and researchers conduct their statistical analysis.
