HLSC 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: False Positives And False Negatives, Common Cold, Pus

• School: Brock University
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: HLSC 1F90
• Professor: Lawrance Kelli- An

Document Summary

Sensitivity*: if a person has a disease, how often will the diagnostic test be positive (true positive). For example, little sally comes to the hospital and she has sars. At the hospital we want to use a diagnostic test to prove that little sally has the disease. If the diagnostic test is highly sensitive, there is a greater chance that it will be positive for. Sensitivity helps rule out if you have the disease. If you really had the disease, the highly sensitive test would pick it up. Thus if your result is negative, you can rule out the disease. Specificity*: if a person doesn"t have a disease, how often will the diagnostic test be negative (true negative). For example, little sally comes to the hospital and she doesn"t have sars. At the hospital we want to use a diagnostic test to prove that little sally is disease free.