Using Directed Acyclic Graphs to Illustrate Common Biases in Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies
用有向无环图解释诊断准确性研究中的常见偏倚
Background: Diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies, like etiological studies, are susceptible to various biases including reference standard error bias, partial verification bias, spectrum effect, confounding, and bias from misassumption of conditional independence. While directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are widely used in etiological research to identify and illustrate bias structures, they have not been systematically applied to DTA studies. Methods: We developed DAGs to…