Diagnostic accuracy of symptoms for an underlying disease: a simulation study.

ABSTRACT: Symptoms have been used to diagnose conditions such as frailty and mental illnesses. However, the diagnostic accuracy of the numbers of symptoms has not been well studied. This study aims to use equations and simulations to demonstrate how the factors that determine symptom incidence influence symptoms' diagnostic accuracy for disease diagnosis. Assuming a disease causing symptoms and correlated with the other disease in 10,000 simulated subjects, 40 symptoms occurred based on 3 epidemiological measures: proportions diseased, baseline symptom incidence (among those not diseased), and risk ratios. Symptoms occurred with similar correlation coefficients. The sensitivities and specificities of single symptoms for disease diagnosis were exhibited as equations using the three epidemiological me

SUBMITTER: Chao YS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9378763 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature