Concepts
Sensitivity (Screening and Diagnostic Testing)
Also Known As True Positive Rate
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Sensitivity is the probability that a screening or diagnostic test returns a positive result, conditioned on the person truly having the condition being tested for: a highly sensitive test misses few true cases, making it useful for ruling a condition out when it comes back negative. Sensitivity and its counterpart specificity are the two statistics epidemiologists and clinicians use together to judge how well a test performs, and the two are usually in tension: raising a test's sensitivity by loosening its threshold for a positive result tends to lower its specificity, and vice versa, so no single test-design choice maximizes both at once.
Facts
Concept ClassSourced to the subject's own account Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Read together, never alone, as the two halves of a screening test's performance, in a documented trade-off with each other.
In Branch
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Sensitivity and Specificity
WikipediaLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Sensitivity (true positive rate) is the probability of a positive test result, conditioned on the individual truly having the condition.
1. Wikipedia: Sensitivity and Specificity
WikipediaApplication to screening study sectionQuote, Application to screening study section
For all testing, both diagnoses and screening, there is usually a trade-off between sensitivity and specificity, such that higher sensitivities will mean lower specificities and vice versa.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.