{
  "abstract": "Most original articles published in the medical literature report the results of multiple statistical tests. In a few simple cases, there is agreement on whether to adjust for the number of performed tests. For many cases encountered in practice, however, this is less clear, and the recommendations in the literature are contradictory, along different dimensions, or otherwise confusing. This lack of clear guidance may impair the conduct and interpretation of analyses, and encourage questionable research practices, ultimately jeopardizing the credibility of medical research. In this article, we refine, illustrate, and discuss a unifying guiding principle to assist both statisticians and applied researchers in deciding whether to adjust for multiple testing and, if so, over which set of tests. The principle is that multiple testing should be adjusted for if and only if authors, when reporting and interpreting their findings, put more emphasis on results of one or several of the tests because of their small p-value(s). We relate this principle to previously proposed rules and show how it can guide and clarify the choice of adjustment strategies in three complex multiple testing settings.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Statistics LMU Munich Munich Germany",
    "Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometry, and Epidemiology, LMU Medizin LMU Munich Munich Germany",
    "Department of Applied Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health University of Birmingham Birmingham UK",
    "Institute of AI and Informatics in Medicine, TUM School of Medicine and Health Technical University of Munich Munich Germany",
    "Institute of General Practice and Health Services Research, TUM School of Medicine and Health Technical University of Munich Munich Germany",
    "Institute of Clinical Biometrics, Center for Medical Data Science Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria",
    "Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics University of Marburg Marburg Germany",
    "Institute for Medical Biometry, Informatics, and Epidemiology University Hospital Bonn Bonn Germany",
    "Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML) Munich Germany"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Sabine Hoffmann",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6197-8801"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Simon Lemster"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Gary Collins"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Alexander Hapfelmeier",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6765-6352"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Georg Heinze",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1147-8491"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Andreas J. Mayr",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7106-9732"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Matthias C. Schmid",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0788-0317"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Juliane C. Wilcke",
      "orcid": "0009-0005-7675-6669"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        8
      ],
      "name": "Anne‐Laure Boulesteix",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2729-0947"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4dnfk6nrzatmb.bib",
  "cited_by": 5,
  "doi": "10.1002/bimj.70148",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "4dnfk6nrzatmb",
  "issns": [
    "0323-3847",
    "1521-4036"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1002/bimj.70148",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2613|Statistical Methods in Clinical Trials"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7167042639",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13324398",
  "pmid": "42388011",
  "published": "2026-07-02",
  "publisher": "Wiley",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4dnfk6nrzatmb.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-06T13:20:22Z",
      "native_id": "W7167042639",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1002/bimj.70148"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "mathematics",
      "origin": "openalex:2613|Statistical Methods in Clinical Trials",
      "subfield": "statistics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "When to Adjust for Multiple Testing: A Unifying Guiding Principle",
  "title_text": "When to Adjust for Multiple Testing: A Unifying Guiding Principle",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T13:20:22Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/4dnfk6nrzatmb",
  "venue": "Biometrical Journal",
  "versions": []
}