Skewed Variable

A skewed variable has a distribution where there are a few observations that are much larger (right-skewed) or smaller (left-skewed) than the others. In clinical research, right-skewed variables can often be recognized from their means and standard deviations (SD’s). If the variable is always larger than zero and its SD is about as large or larger than its mean, then it is right-skewed. Such variables often work better in statistical analyses if they are logarithmically transformed.