Title-plus-abstract versus title-only first-level screening approach: a case study using a systematic review of dietary patterns and sarcopenia risk to compare screening performance

Table 1 Contingency table and associated variables used to assess each study screening approach^a

	Qualified studies	Unqualified studies	Potential studies
Included studies	Included qualified studies or Included ‘Trues’ T	Included unqualified studies or Included ‘Falses’ F	Potential included studies T + F
Excluded studies	Excluded qualified studies or Excluded ‘Trues’ Q-T	Excluded unqualified studies or Excluded ‘Falses’ E–F	Potential excluded studies Q + E-(T + F)
Total studies	Total qualified studies or Total ‘Trues’ Q	Total unqualified studies or Total ‘Falses’ E	Total potential studies Z = Q + E

^aA contingency table is a simple 2 × 2 matrix where one of the axes indicates a study’s eligibility qualification status (e.g., whether a study should have been included/excluded) and the other axis indicates the study’s actual eligibility status (e.g., whether a study has actually been included/excluded) as determined by the reviewer. From this matrix, the following key metrics can be calculated to help determine screening performance [13]:
• Sensitivity = T / Q (This measure describes how effective the screening approach is at correctly identifying which studies to include and how ineffective it is at excluding qualified studies)
• Specificity = (E—F) / E (This measure describes how effective the screening approach is at correctly identifying which studies to exclude and how ineffective it is at including unqualified studies)
• Accuracy = ((T / Q) + ((E—F) / E)) / Z (This measure describes how effective the screening approach is at correctly identifying which studies to include and exclude overall)
• Predictive Power = T / (T + F) (This measure describes how effective overall the screening approach is at including qualified studies)

ISSN: 2046-4053