Evaluating the cost of simplicity in score building: An example from alcohol research.
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_752B371AA190
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Evaluating the cost of simplicity in score building: An example from alcohol research.
Journal
PloS one
ISSN
1932-6203 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
1932-6203
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2023
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
18
Number
11
Pages
e0294671
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: epublish
Publication Status: epublish
Abstract
Building a score from a questionnaire to predict a binary gold standard is a common research question in psychology and health sciences. When building this score, researchers may have to choose between statistical performance and simplicity. A practical question is to what extent it is worth sacrificing the former to improve the latter. We investigated this research question using real data, in which the aim was to predict an alcohol use disorder (AUD) diagnosis from 20 self-reported binary questions in young Swiss men (n = 233, mean age = 26). We compared the statistical performance using the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of (a) a "refined score" obtained by logistic regression and several simplified versions of it ("simple scores"): with (b) 3, (c) 2, and (d) 1 digit(s), and (e) a "sum score" that did not allow negative coefficients. We used four estimation methods: (a) maximum likelihood, (b) backward selection, (c) LASSO, and (d) ridge penalty. We also used bootstrap procedures to correct for optimism. Simple scores, especially sum scores, performed almost identically or even slightly better than the refined score (respective ranges of corrected AUCs for refined and sum scores: 0.828-0.848, 0.835-0.850), with the best performance been achieved by LASSO. Our example data demonstrated that simplifying a score to predict a binary outcome does not necessarily imply a major loss in statistical performance, while it may improve its implementation, interpretation, and acceptability. Our study thus provides further empirical evidence of the potential benefits of using sum scores in psychology and health sciences.
Keywords
Male, Humans, Adult, Logistic Models, Surveys and Questionnaires, Alcoholism/diagnosis, Self Report, Medicine
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
01/12/2023 11:49
Last modification date
08/08/2024 7:27