Abstract
In medicine we often want to compare two different methods of measuring some quantity, such as blood pressure, gestational age, or cardiac stroke volume. Sometimes we compare an approximate or simple method with a very precise one. This is a calibration problem, and we shall not discuss it further here. Frequently, however, we cannot regard either method as giving the true value of the quantity being measured. In this case we want to know whether the methods give answers which are, in some sense, comparable. For example, we may wish to see whether a new, cheap and quick method produces answers that agree with those from an established method sufficiently well for clinical purposes. Many such studies, using a variety of statistical techniques, have been reported. Yet few really answer the question “Do the two methods of measurement agree sufficiently closely?” In this paper we shall describe what is usually done, show why this is inappropriate, suggest a better approach, and ask why such studies are done so badly. We will restrict our consideration to the comparison of two methods of measuring a continuous variable, although similar problems can arise with categorical variables.
Keywords
StatisticsMathematicsComputer science
Related Publications
STATISTICAL METHODS FOR ASSESSING AGREEMENT BETWEEN TWO METHODS OF CLINICAL MEASUREMENT
In clinical measurement comparison of a new measurement technique with an established one is often needed to see whether they agree sufficiently for the new to replace the old. ...
Measuring agreement in method comparison studies
Agreement between two methods of clinical measurement can be quantified using the differences between observations made using the two methods on the same subjects. The 95% limit...
Accounting for Uncertainty in the Tree Topology Has Little Effect on the Decision-Theoretic Approach to Model Selection in Phylogeny Estimation
Currently available methods for model selection used in phylogenetic analysis are based on an initial fixed-tree topology. Once a model is picked based on this topology, a rigor...
Probabilistic Interpretation of Population Codes
We present a general encoding-decoding framework for interpreting the activity of a population of units. A standard population code interpretation method, the Poisson model, sta...
An examination of the relative importance of four belief constructs on the GSS adoption decision: a comparison of four methods
Four methods of measuring the relative importance of four belief constructs on the group support system (GSS) adoption decision were evaluated for convergent validity. The metho...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1983
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 307-307
- Citations
- 4288
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
4288
OpenAlex
Cite This
Douglas G. Altman,
John M. Bland
(1983).
Measurement in Medicine: The Analysis of Method Comparison Studies.
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series D (The Statistician)
, 32
(3)
, 307-307.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2987937
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.2307/2987937