Which of the following are indicative of an effective screen

Which of the following are indicative of an effective screening program?

1.Treatment of the disease at earlier stages is less effective than treatment begun after the development of symptoms.

2. Disease should never be life threatening.

3. The prevalence of the disease has to be high among the population screened.

4. Test should have adequate sensitivity and specificity

a. 1 and 2

b. 3 only

c. 2, 3 and 4

d. 3 and 4

e. 4 only

Solution

What criteria should be considered for an effective screening program?

A screening program that finds diseases that occur less often could only benefit few individuals. Such a program might prevent some deaths. While preventing even one death is important, given limited resources, a more cost-effective program for diseases that are more common should be given a higher priority, because it will help more people.

In some cases though, screening for low prevalence diseases is also cost effective, if the cost of screening is less than the cost of care if the disease is not detected early. For example, phenylketonuria (PKU) is a rare disease but has very serious long-term consequences if left untreated. PKU occurs in only 1 out of every approximately 15,000 births, and if left untreated can result in severe mental retardation that can be prevented with dietary intervention. The availability of a simple, accurate and inexpensive test has lead many states, including New York State, to require PKU screening for all newborns.

you can conclude for this indicative that a screening program that is effective have