Abstract
An article was published in October 2020 by Ashish Mathew et al., with the purpose of comparing the inbuilt torque and slot size of the MBT prescription bracket of different manufacturing companies using stereo-microscope. 1
The article was of great information and appreciated by most of us, but we have come across certain doubts. Kindly respond to the same.
In Abstract (p. 297), it is mentioned that upper right central incisor brackets of the Mclaughlin Bennet and Trevisi (MBT) prescription with a 0.022-inch slot were used in this study, while in the methodology section (p. 298) left upper central incisor brackets are mentioned. Kindly explain the variation. In Table 3 (p. 300), Fr-ratio is given as 6.745. In statistics, F-ratio is the ratio of the mean square value of between group to the mean square value of within group, but here the mean square value of both the between and within group is given as 0, and so the F-ratio should also be 0. Kindly clear our doubt. As mentioned in Results (p. 299), a post-hoc power analysis was done to determine the built-in torque, and it was found to be 0.761, but in Table 5 (p. 300), the observed power is mentioned as 0.996. Kindly explain the variation. In statistical analysis (p. 298), Kappa statistics is used for assessing intra-examiner reliability.
We feel intraclass correlation coefficient should be used instead of Kappa statistics, as Kappa statistics is used for intra-examiner reliability when data is qualitative and in this study we have quantitative data.