Question

Sensitivity and specificity are important criteria for screening and diagnostic instruments. What is specificity?

(A) Different method of measuring the same attributes yielding similar results
(B) Ability to differentiate the construct being measured from other similar concepts
(C) Instrument's ability to identify a case correctly
(D) Instrument's ability to identify noncases correctly.

Answer 1

The correct answer is (D) Instrument's ability to identify noncases correctly.

Step-by-step explanation:

A specificity of diagnostic instruments means that the instrument have the ability to identify those person correctly who is not having the disease.

There are very few results that are false positive in any highly specific diagnostic test. Therefore specificity used to show the negative results of patients that means it identifies the non-diseased persons correctly.

The sensitivity of the diagnostic instruments means it correctly identifies individuals having disease. So in sensitivity, diseased persons who are positive for the disease are diagnosed correctly.

Therefore the correct answer is (D) Instrument's ability to identify noncases correctly.