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ROC area under curve interpretation — FRCA Primary MCQ

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HardStatistics and Evidence-Based MedicineROC area under curve interpretationFRCA Primary

A preoperative frailty score has an area under the ROC curve of 0.82 for postoperative complications. What does this most directly indicate?

Educational content. Not a substitute for clinical judgement or local policy.

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Correct answer: B — Good discrimination between patients with and without complications

The best answer is “Good discrimination between patients with and without complications”. The area under the ROC curve measures discrimination: the probability that a randomly selected patient with the outcome has a higher predicted risk than one without it. It does not itself equal positive predictive value, prevalence, a fixed sensitivity or specificity, or calibration.

Reference: NICE, Developing NICE guidelines: Developing review questions and planning the evidence review: https://www.nice.org.uk/process/pmg20/chapter/developing-review-questions-and-planning-the-evidence-review/