Thanks, I was wondering if the answer would be something like this (basically that I should be using a distribution rather than a point estimate, something that @gwillen also mentioned when he reviewed the draft version of this point).
If the sensitivity and specificity are estimated with data from studies with large (>1000) sample sizes it mostly won’t matter.
That’s the case for the antigen test data; the sample sizes are >1000 for each subgroup analyzed (asymptomatic, symptoms developed <1 week ago, symptoms developed >1 week ago).
The sample size for all NAATs was 4351, but the sample size for the subgroups of Abbot ID Now and Cepheid Xpert Xpress were only 812 and 100 respectively. Maybe that’s a small enough sample size that I should be suspicious of the subgroup analyses? (@JBlack mentioned this concern below and pointed out that for the Cepheid test, there were only 29 positive cases total).
Thanks, I was wondering if the answer would be something like this (basically that I should be using a distribution rather than a point estimate, something that @gwillen also mentioned when he reviewed the draft version of this point).
That’s the case for the antigen test data; the sample sizes are >1000 for each subgroup analyzed (asymptomatic, symptoms developed <1 week ago, symptoms developed >1 week ago).
The sample size for all NAATs was 4351, but the sample size for the subgroups of Abbot ID Now and Cepheid Xpert Xpress were only 812 and 100 respectively. Maybe that’s a small enough sample size that I should be suspicious of the subgroup analyses? (@JBlack mentioned this concern below and pointed out that for the Cepheid test, there were only 29 positive cases total).