Next, choose a diagnostic or screening method (related to your choice from the list of health issues above).
You may use one of the following web sites to locate a screening tool, a scholarly article, or a tool from a professional web site of your choice (for example, from the American Psychological Association).
U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
SAMHSA-HRSA (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Reply to the following prompt:
Describe the diagnostic or screening tool selected, its purpose, and what age group it targets.
Has it been specifically tested in this age group?
Next, discuss the predictive ability of the test. For instance, how do you know the test is reliable and valid? What are the reliability and validity values? What are the predictive values? Is it sensitive to measure what it has been developed to measure, for instance, HIV, or depression in older adults, or Lyme disease? Would you integrate this tool into your advanced practice based on the information you have read about the test, why or why not?
You should include a minimum of two (2) scholarly articles from the last five (5) years (3 is recommended)
Differences between screening and diagnostic tests
Screening tests | Diagnostic tests | |
Purpose | To detect potential disease indicators | To establish presence/absence of disease |
Target population | Large numbers of asymptomatic, but potentially at risk individuals | Symptomatic individuals to establish diagnosis, or asymptomatic individuals with a positive screening test |
Test method | Simple, acceptable to patients and staff | maybe invasive, expensive but justifiable as necessary to establish diagnosis |
Positive result threshold | Generally chosen towards high sensitivity not to miss potential disease | Chosen towards high specificity (true negatives). More weight given to accuracy and precision than to patient acceptability |
Positive result | Essentially indicates suspicion of disease (often used in combination with other risk factors) that warrants confirmation | Result provides a definite diagnosis |
Cost | Cheap, benefits should justify the costs since large numbers of people will need to be screened to identify a small number of potential cases | Higher costs associated with diagnostic test maybe justified to establish diagnosis. |