Introduction:

Statistical competence in health professionals continues to be a pending matter that receives little attention at the national level.

Objective:

To determine the level of statistical competence shown in diploma papers of the medical and nursing majors at Ecuadorian universities, as well as its relationship with the category, ranking, and type of university funding.

Methods:

Descriptive bibliometric and cross-sectional study. The statistical procedures and techniques presented in the medical and nursing diploma papers of 18 Ecuadorian universities, published in 2017, were reviewed. 275 and 254 diploma papers from the medical and nursing majors, respectively, were analyzed. The level of statistical competence was evaluated on the basis of review of the national program of Mathematics in general basic education and senior high school, that of mathematical studies of Bachillerato Internacional [international senior high school], and the undergraduate and postgraduate syllabuses of the subjects Statistics, Biostatistics and Epidemiology at four universities.

Results:

The level of statistical competence shown in most of the papers was that of general basic education and senior high school. The descriptive methods were the most used, especially in the Nursing major. Among the statistical tests, the Chi-square test, the epidemiological association measures (odds ratio), and the Student-t test stood out, especially in diploma papers from the Medicine major. The level of statistical competence was associated with the universities’ category, ranking, and type of funding.

Conclusions:

The results show a limited use of statistical techniques by graduates from the nursing and medical majors in Ecuador, which are accessible to general public with basic and senior high school levels. This results demand new questions aimed at evaluating the statistical and methodological quality of diploma papers in these and other majors.