Robust approaches for the analysis of agreement between clinical measurements: development of guidance and software tools for researchers

一致性研究关注的是评估两种不同的方法或设备在测量同一变量时的一致性。例如，一项协议研究可能希望比较两个测量血压的设备，如果这两个设备的测量结果彼此足够接近，我们可以得出结论，这两个设备是一致的。有许多不同的统计方法可以用来评估协议，但并不是所有的方法在每一种情况下都有效，有些在任何情况下都不有效。在这个项目中，我们希望回顾最近的文献，以调查研究人员在实践中用于评估一致性的方法。我们还将开发一种新的评估协议的方法，我们预计这种方法将适用于数据不遵循不寻常模式的情况。我们将针对标准方法彻底测试这一新方法，并评估其他研究人员在过去几年提出的其他新开发的协议方法。此外，我们将开发软件工具，以便研究人员可以轻松地使用新方法以及标准方法。最后，我们将公布我们的所有研究成果，以便研究界随时获得这些成果。该项目的主要目标之一是促进使用有效的方法来评估协议，并防止任何错误的协议方法的应用，这可能导致劣质设备、医疗程序或数据收集方法被用于患者。

Agreement studies are concerned with assessing how closely two different methods or devices agree in their measurements of the same variable. For example, an agreement study may wish to compare two devices for measuring blood pressure, and if the measurements from the two devices are sufficiently close to each other, we can conclude that the two devices agree. There are many different statistical approaches that can be used to assess agreement, but not all of them are valid in every context, and some are not valid in any context. In this project, we wish to review the recent literature to investigate the methods that have been used by researchers for assessing agreement in practice. We will also develop a new method for assessing agreement that we expect will be suitable for when data does not follow the unusual pattern. We will thoroughly test this new method against standard approaches, as well as evaluate other newly developed agreement methods that have been put forward by other researchers in the last few years. In addition, we will develop software tools so that researchers can easily use the new approaches, as well as standard methods. Finally, we will publicise all of our research findings so that they are readily accessible by the research community. One of the main aims of this project is to promote the use of valid methods to assess agreement, and prevent any wrong applications of agreement methods, which could lead to inferior devices, medical procedures, or data collection methods being used in patients.