Analysing clinical decision analyses
- 1 November 1990
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Statistics in Medicine
- Vol. 9 (11) , 1229-1242
- https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.4780091104
Abstract
We present a critical review of aspects of clinical decision analysis which uses an application to screening for familial intracranial aneurysms. The analysis is reported together with methods for assessing decision trees. These methods appear to be powerful checks on the usually rather intuitive way in which decision trees are built. The problem of assessing the uncertainty in the results of a decision analysis is discussed in detail. In practice, sensitivity analysis covers nearly every calculation apart from the standard evaluation of the decision tree. Different forms of sensitivity analysis are distinguished and given appropriate names: influence analysis, threshold analysis, full Bayesian analysis, Bayesian influence analysis, attribute analysis, generalization analysis and scenario analysis. The biostatistical community may well contribute to the much needed methodological improvement in decision analysis and its different forms of sensitivity analysis, especially if prepared to look beyond the standard statistical techniques.This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- The marriage of clinical trials and clinical decision scienceStatistics in Medicine, 1990
- Automated Critiquing of Medical Decision TreesMedical Decision Making, 1989
- Variance estimation for medical decision analysisStatistics in Medicine, 1989
- To the EditorMedical Decision Making, 1986
- Probabilistic Analysis of Decision Trees Using Symbolic AlgebraMedical Decision Making, 1986
- Probabilistic Analysis of Decision Trees Using Monte Carlo SimulationMedical Decision Making, 1986
- Probabilistic Sensitivity Analysis Using Monte Carlo SimulationMedical Decision Making, 1985
- Some useful extensions of the standard model for probabilistic supervised pattern recognitionAnalytica Chimica Acta, 1983
- Statistical Considerations in Medical Decision ModelsMedical Decision Making, 1983
- Reasoning Foundations of Medical DiagnosisScience, 1959