Potential biases in the classification, analysis and interpretations in cross-sectional study: commentaries – surrounding the article

BMC Pediatrics

Heráclito Barbosa Carvalho⁴  Luis A Moreno²  Alex Jones Flores Cassenote¹  Augusto César Ferreira de Moraes³ 

[1] Postgraduate Program in Infectious and Parasitic Diseases, School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil;Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain;GENUD - Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development, UNIZAR/Spain, Zaragoza, Spain;Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

关键词: High triglycerides;    High glucose;    P-value;    Screening test;    Resting heart rate;   

Others  :  1138867
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2431-14-117

 received in 2013-07-22, accepted in 2014-04-25,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Resting heart rate reflects sympathetic nerve activity. A significant association between resting heart rate (HR) and all causes of cardiovascular mortality has been reported by some epidemiologic studies. Despite suggestive evidence, resting heart rate (RHR) has not been formally explored as a prognostic factor and potential therapeutic outcome and, therefore, is not generally accepted in adolescents.

Discussion

The core of the debate is the methodological aspects used in "Resting heart rate: its correlations and potential for screening metabolic dysfunctions in adolescents"; the points are: cutoff used for cluster RHR, two different statistical models used to analyze the same set of variables, one for continuous data, and another for categorical data; interpretation of p-value < 0.05, sampling process involving two random stages, analysis of design effect and the parameters of screening tests.

Summary

Aspects that must be taken into account for evaluation of a screening test to measure the potential for discrimination for a common variable (population with outcome vs. no outcome population), the main indicators are: sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value. The measures of argumentation equality (CI) or difference (p-valor) are important to validate these indicators but do not indicate quality of screening.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 de Moraes et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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