Diagnostic specificity describes the test's ability to correctly identify those without the disease. Which term corresponds to this concept?

Diagnostic specificity describes the test's ability to correctly identify those without the disease. Which term corresponds to this concept?

• A. Sensitivity
• B. Specificity
• C. Predictive value
• D. Accuracy

Answer: (B)

This question is about how well a test avoids mislabeling healthy people as diseased. The term that captures this ability is specificity. Specificity is the proportion of true negatives among all individuals without the disease. A highly specific test yields few false positives, meaning that when the disease is not present, it is very likely to produce a negative result. For example, if 100 people are disease-free and the test correctly returns negative for 95 of them but wrongly flags 5 as positive, the specificity is 95%. By contrast, sensitivity looks at those who actually have the disease and measures how well the test identifies them as positive. Predictive value relates to how likely a test result reflects actual disease status given prevalence, and accuracy is the overall rate of correct results across all people.

This question is about how well a test avoids mislabeling healthy people as diseased. The term that captures this ability is specificity. Specificity is the proportion of true negatives among all individuals without the disease. A highly specific test yields few false positives, meaning that when the disease is not present, it is very likely to produce a negative result.

For example, if 100 people are disease-free and the test correctly returns negative for 95 of them but wrongly flags 5 as positive, the specificity is 95%. By contrast, sensitivity looks at those who actually have the disease and measures how well the test identifies them as positive. Predictive value relates to how likely a test result reflects actual disease status given prevalence, and accuracy is the overall rate of correct results across all people.