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. 2021 Feb 12;26(3):847–863. doi: 10.1007/s10459-020-10025-8
HIV
Probability version Natural frequency version
Medical situation Imagine being a doctor at an AIDS counseling center. In addition to individual counseling sessions, HIV tests are also carried out in this AIDS counseling center. For this purpose, a blood sample is taken from the client and an HIV test is carried out
They are currently counseling a low-risk client who has received a positive HIV test result. This client wants to know what this means for him
For your answer, you will only have the following information available, based on a sample of low risk individuals who have all been HIV tested:
Presentation of information Text only Text only
Tree diagram only Tree diagram only
Text The probability of a low-risk person being HIV-infected is 0.01% 100 out of every 1,000,000 low-risk individuals are HIV-infected
The probability that a person will receive a positive HIV test result when infected with HIV is 99.7% 100 out of 100 people who are infected with HIV receive a positive result in the HIV test
The likelihood of a person being mistakenly positive for the HIV test while not HIV-infected is 0.0004% 4 out of 999,900 people who are not infected with HIV mistakenly receive a positive result from the ELISA test
Tree diagram Probability tree (in the version with a tree diagram) Frequency tree (in the version with a tree diagram)
Question What is the probability that this person is actually HIV-infected? How many of those positively tested for HIV are actually HIV-infected?
Answer: _______ Answer: ____ out of _____