ArticleJournal of evaluation in clinical practice2026
Uncertain Pretest Probabilities in Diagnostic Reasoning: The Prevalence Threshold as a Tipping Point.
Article in Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
rationalePost-test probabilities are reported as precise numbers even though the pretest probabilities they depend on are uncertain and, for an individual patient, unobservable. Clinicians need a way to tell the mathematical question-how strongly is a change in the pretest estimate carried through to the post-test probability-apart from the clinical question of whether the remaining uncertainty is wide enough to alter management. AIMS AND
objectivesTo show that the prevalence threshold (
methodConceptual and analytic study, supported by a targeted narrative overview of pretest-probability estimation and of cognitive influences on diagnostic reasoning. We derived how strongly the positive-result screening curve responds to a change in the pretest probability, examined how that result depends on the scale used, distinguished
resultsFor a positive likelihood ratio
conclusionThe prevalence threshold is a closed-form description of how uncertainty travels through a positive test result, not a decision rule and not a guarantee of precision. Its useful role is to prompt clinicians to state a pretest range, convert it, and compare the result with the probability at which they would act differently. Vignette and human-factors studies with clinicians are needed before clinical implementation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.