Sensitivity and Specificity Analysis Relation to Statistical Hypothesis Testing and Its Errors: Application to Cryptosporidium Detection Techniques

摘要

The use of Statistical Hypothesis Testing procedure to determine type I and type II errors was linked to the measurement of sensitivity and specificity in clinical trial test and experimental pathogen detection techniques. A theoretical analysis of establishing these types of errors was made and compared to determination of False Positive, False Negative, True Positive and True Negative. Experimental laboratory detection methods used to detect Cryptosporidium spp. were used to highlight the relationship between hypothesis testing, sensitivity, specificity and predicted values. The study finds that, sensitivity and specificity for the two laboratory methods used for Cryptosporidium detection were low hence lowering the probability of detecting a “false null hypothesis” for the presence of cryptosporidium in the water samples using either Microscopic or PCR. Nevertheless, both procedures for cryptosporidium detection had higher “true negatives” increasing its probability of failing to reject a “true null hypothesis” with specificity of 1.00 for both Microscopic and PCR laboratory detection methods.