In screening, what does sensitivity measure?

• A. Correct identification as impaired.
• B. The rate of false positives.
• C. Test duration.
• D. Correct identification as typical.

Answer: (A)

Sensitivity is how good a screening tool is at catching people who truly have the impairment. It’s the proportion of individuals with the condition who are correctly identified as impaired by the test. For example, if 100 people are truly impaired and the screen flags 90 of them, the sensitivity is 90%. This matters because it shows how many cases the screening would miss (false negatives). It does not describe how well the test identifies people who are not impaired—that’s specificity, which relates to correctly labeling people as typical and to the rate of false positives. Test duration is unrelated to sensitivity.