GRADE: assessing the quality of evidence for diagnostic recommendations

Abstract

Clinicians are trained to use tests for screening and diagnosis, identifying physiological derangements, establishing a prognosis, and monitoring illness and treatment response by assessing signs and symptoms, imaging, biochemistry, pathology, and psychological testing techniques.2 Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, likelihood ratios, and diagnostic odds ratios are among the challenging terms that diagnostic studies typically deliver to clinicians, and all have to do with diagnostic accuracy. Not only do clinicians have difficulties remembering the definitions and calculations for these terms, these concepts are often complex to apply to individual patients. Many clinicians order a test despite uncertainty about how to interpret the result, and they also contribute to testing errors …