Abstract
Evaluation of psychiatric screening and diagnostic tests has benefited from the application of sensitivity, specificity, the kappa-statistic, and predictive values. These measures derive their meaning from a single criterion threshold. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis extends assessment of test performance by providing information about all possible pairs of achievable sensitivity and specificity values. The ROC analysis offers a comprehensive means for comparing different tests or different scoring procedures for one test. As a demonstration we used the ROC analysis to evaluate three types of scoring rules for one psychiatric test, the Health Opinion Survey. The demonstration indicated that ROC analysis can profitably take a place among the standard methods for test evaluation in psychiatric research. In addition, ROC analysis can assist clinicians in selecting appropriate test procedures for particular patient populations.
Keywords
Receiver operating characteristicTest (biology)Cohen's kappaStatisticKappaSensitivity (control systems)StatisticsPsychologyMedicineMedical physicsComputer scienceMachine learningMathematics
Related Publications
The use of relative operating characteristic (ROC) curves in test performance evaluation.
Relative (or receiver) operating characteristic (ROC) curves are a graphical representation of the relationship between sensitivity and specificity of a laboratory test over all...
A Computer Program for Rapid Generation of Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves and Likelihood Ratios in the Evaluation of Diagnostic Tests
We describe a MUMPS program to facilitate the evaluation of the diagnostic effectiveness and efficiency of laboratory tests using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves ...
Use and Misuse of the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve in Risk Prediction
The c statistic, or area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, achieved popularity in diagnostic testing, in which the test characteristics of sensitivity and...
Receiver operating characteristic curve: overview and practical use for clinicians
Using diagnostic testing to determine the presence or absence of a disease is essential in clinical practice. In many cases, test results are obtained as continuous values and r...
Nonparametric comparison of two tests of cardiac function on the same patient population using the entire ROC curve
Typically a diagnostic algorithm based on a cardiac-function test uses a threshold on a parameter to separate normal from diseased patients. This threshold may be determined thr...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1987
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 550-550
- Citations
- 365
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
365
OpenAlex
Cite This
Jane M. Murphy
(1987).
Performance of Screening and Diagnostic Tests.
Archives of General Psychiatry
, 44
(6)
, 550-550.
https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1987.01800180068011
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1001/archpsyc.1987.01800180068011