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Discussion 7 Module

This document discusses sensitivity and specificity as it relates to diagnostic testing. It provides: 1) Sensitivity measures the ability of a test to correctly identify those with a condition, while specificity measures the ability to correctly identify those without the condition. 2) An example is using these concepts to determine if close contacts of someone with COVID-19 test positive or negative for the virus. 3) The terms sensitivity and specificity can be confusing, so it's important to understand that sensitivity refers to correctly identifying those with a condition, while specificity refers to correctly identifying those without the condition. False positives and negatives can still occur even with sensitive tests.

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Aisha Robertson (student)
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21 views

Discussion 7 Module

This document discusses sensitivity and specificity as it relates to diagnostic testing. It provides: 1) Sensitivity measures the ability of a test to correctly identify those with a condition, while specificity measures the ability to correctly identify those without the condition. 2) An example is using these concepts to determine if close contacts of someone with COVID-19 test positive or negative for the virus. 3) The terms sensitivity and specificity can be confusing, so it's important to understand that sensitivity refers to correctly identifying those with a condition, while specificity refers to correctly identifying those without the condition. False positives and negatives can still occur even with sensitive tests.

Uploaded by

Aisha Robertson (student)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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P.I.

E Method

P. (Chatburn, 2011) discusses sensitivity and specificity as characteristics of diagnostic


test. Sensitivity is the ability of a test to correctly identify patients with the condition of
interest. It can answer the question, “how likely is that patient to test positive?”
Specificity is the ability of a test to patient correctly who do have the condition of
interest. It answers the question, “how likely is that patient to test negative?”

I. A valid workplace example of sensitivity and specificity is determining if most people


have been in close contact with an individual with Covid-19. For instance, an individual
in the same department tested positive for Covid-19. If human resources wanted to
data to analyze, sensitivity characteristics would be needed to determine if majority of
the people who had close contact will be identified and test positive as well or if only
few will be identified as not having Covid-19. Specificity characteristics would identify
who did not test positive for Covid-19.

E. Imprecise usage of the terms "sensitivity" and "specificity" can be confusing as it


pertains to testing. Sensitivity is the percentage of people who have a given disorder or
condition and who are identified as positive for the disorder. High analytical sensitivity
does not guarantee acceptable diagnostic sensitivity. Specificity is the percentage of
people who do not have a given disorder or condition who are identified as negative for
the condition. False-positive or false negative reactions can occur test are sensitive to
the condition
Reference:
Chatburn, R.L. (2011). Handbook for Health Care Research (2nd Ed.), Sudbury, MA: Jones and
Bartlett

An independent t-test, or unpaired t-test, is a statistical procedure that


compares the averages/means of two independent or unrelated groups to
determine if there is a significant difference between the two. It is used to
compare the mean between two independent groups. You use an unpaired t-
test when you are comparing two separate groups with equal variance. A
paired t-test, or dependent t-test, is a statistical test that compares the
averages/means and standard deviations of two related groups to determine if
there is a significant difference between the two groups. It used when the
same item or group is tested twice, which is known as a repeated measures t-
test.

Two-sample t-test is used when the data of two samples are statistically


independent, while the paired t-test is used when data is in the form of
matched pairs. There are also some technical differences between them.
To use the two-sample t-test, we need to assume that the data from both
samples are normally distributed and they have the same variances. For
paired t-test, we only require that the difference of each pair is normally
distributed. An important parameter in the t-distribution is the degrees
of freedom. For two independent samples with equal sample size for the
two-sample t-test. However, if we have n matched pairs, the actual
sample size may have data from different subjects.
The formulas to calculate the sample mean difference are always the
same, which equals the sample mean of the treatment group minus the
sample mean of the control group. One of the differences is their
variances. For the matched-pair data, if two observations within the
same pair are positively (negatively) correlated, the variance of the mean
difference is smaller (larger) than that in the case of independent
samples.

Xu, M., Fralick, D., Zheng, J. Z., Wang, B., Tu, X. M., & Feng, C. (2017). The
Differences and Similarities Between Two-Sample T-Test and Paired T-
Test. Shanghai archives of psychiatry, 29(3), 184–188.
https://doi.org/10.11919/j.issn.1002-0829.217070

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