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Confidence intervals for post‐test probability
Author(s) -
Monsour Michael J.,
Evans Arthur T.,
Kupper Lawrence L.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.4780100316
Subject(s) - confidence interval , statistics , credible interval , coverage probability , test (biology) , cdf based nonparametric confidence interval , medicine , robust confidence intervals , sensitivity (control systems) , mathematics , paleontology , electronic engineering , engineering , biology
Confidence intervals are a natural way to describe the uncertainty of post‐test probability in diagnostic tests. We consider confidence intervals for two different scenarios. At a site, for example, hospital emergency room or student health centre, with measured values of disease prevalence, sensitivity and specificity available, the confidence interval is similar to results in the literature, but at a site where measured values of these indices are unavailable, we develop a method, using the values of disease prevalence, sensitivity and specificity from other sites, to obtain a confidence interval for post‐test probability. We use the diagnosis of strep throat to illustrate the results. We also obtain confidence intervals from simulations to compare with the results of both scenarios.