Reddit reviews Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence (Core Handbook Series in Pediatrics)

I read the second edition of Studying a Study & Testing a Test by Riegelman and it was the best thing I did in preparation for my masters in biostatistics & clinical epidemiology. I specifically like the fifth edition (pink cover) because it has a brief statistics primer in the sixth section that is unmatched as a general / mostly non-technical overview, in my opinion. The rest of the book is not about statistics, per se, but is a great overview on study design and test fit diagnostics (sens/spec, PPV, ROC curves, etc.). That last section on stats, which won't take you more than a couple of afternoons to read, is worth the purchase alone. It has very helpful charts on how to select the appropriate statistic depending on your model construction and types of predictor / outcome variables. It is unfortunate that they removed this in the sixth edition. And yes, it is (only) available as a physical book. Here is a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Studying-Study-Testing-Test-Pediatrics/dp/0781745764/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408634374&sr=8-2&keywords=studying+a+study

EDIT: sixth section, not third