ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2017
Selective Cutoff Reporting in Studies of Diagnostic Test Accuracy: A Comparison of Conventional and Individual-Patient-Data Meta-Analyses of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Depression Screening Tool.
Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Diagnostic Prediction Models for Depression in Patients With Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review.Journal of clinical nursing · 2026Pooled it
- Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Anxiety subscale (HADS-A) for detecting anxiety disorders in adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- An empirical comparison of statistical methods for multiple cut-off diagnostic test accuracy meta-analysis of the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale (EPDS) depression screening tool using published results vs individual participant data.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Pooled it
- Accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 for screening to detect major depression: updated systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Pooled it
- Selective cutoff reporting in studies of the accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale: Comparison of results based on published cutoffs versus all cutoffs using individual participant data meta-analysis.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2021Pooled it
- Accuracy of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Depression subscale (HADS-D) to screen for major depression: systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Pooled it
- Accuracy of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for screening to detect major depression: individual participant data meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2019Pooled it
- The association of depression and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.BMC medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Decision-theoretic recruitment and validation planning for depression surveys: An illustrative Chinese application.PloS one · 2026Article
- [The modified Chinese version of Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale for measurement of emotional health: revision and psychometric evaluation].Nan fang yi ke da xue xue bao = Journal of Southern Medical University · 2025Article
- All-cause and cause-specific mortality in people with depression: a large-scale systematic review and meta-analysis of relative risk and aggravating or attenuating factors, including antidepressant treatment.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2025Article
- Ethical Issues and Challenges Regarding the Use of Mental Health Questionnaires in Public Health Nutrition Research.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Mental illness-related stigma and its associated factors among primary health care professionals in rural China.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Data-Driven Cutoff Selection for the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Depression Screening Tool.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Two-Step Screening for Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Cancer: A Retrospective Validation Study Using Real-World Data.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Article
- Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Item Pairing Predictiveness for Prescreening Depressive Symptomatology: Machine Learning Analysis.JMIR mental health · 2023Article
- How to Critically Appraise and Interpret Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Diagnostic Accuracy: A User Guide.Radiology · 2023Review
- Transparency and completeness of reporting of depression screening tool accuracy studies: A meta-research review of adherence to the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies statement.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2023Review
- Sample size and precision of estimates in studies of depression screening tool accuracy: A meta-research review of studies published in 2018-2021.International journal of methods in psychiatric research · 2022Article
- PRIME-IPD SERIES Part 1. The PRIME-IPD tool promoted verification and standardization of study datasets retrieved for IPD meta-analysis.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
28 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In studies of diagnostic test accuracy, authors sometimes report results only for a range of cutoff points around data-driven "optimal" cutoffs. We assessed selective cutoff reporting in studies of the diagnostic accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) depression screening tool. We compared conventional meta-analysis of published results only with individual-patient-data meta-analysis of results derived from all cutoff points, using data from 13 of 16 studies published during 2004-2009 that were included in a published conventional meta-analysis. For the "standard" PHQ-9 cutoff of 10, accuracy results had been published by 11 of the studies. For all other relevant cutoffs, 3-6 studies published accuracy results. For all cutoffs examined, specificity estimates in conventional and individual-patient-data meta-analyses were within 1% of each other. Sensitivity estimates were similar for the cutoff of 10 but differed by 5%-15% for other cutoffs. In samples where the PHQ-9 was poorly sensitive at the standard cutoff, authors tended to report results for lower cutoffs that yielded optimal results. When the PHQ-9 was highly sensitive, authors more often reported results for higher cutoffs. Consequently, in the conventional meta-analysis, sensitivity increased as cutoff severity increased across part of the cutoff range-an impossibility if all data are analyzed. In sum, selective reporting by primary study authors of only results from cutoffs that perform well in their study can bias accuracy estimates in meta-analyses of published results.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.