Sensitivity, specificity, and measures of agreement of VA questions regarding HIV status and ART initiation (n=459)
| VA question | Answers | Sensitivity*, % (95% CI) | Specificity*, % (95% CI) | Overall agreement*†, % | Κ* (95% CI) | CCC* | ||
| Yes, n (%) | No, n (%) | DNK, n (%) | ||||||
| Was there any diagnosis of HIV/AIDS? (n=459) | 306 (66.7) | 111 (24.2) | 42 (9.2) | 84.3 (80.1 to 87.9) | 94.2 (87.8 to 97.8) | 86.5 | 0.68 (0.60 to 0.74) | 0.69 |
| Did she/he ever take ART? (n=306)‡ | 237 (77.5) | 50 (16.3) | 19 (6.2) | 91.0 (86.4 to 94.5) | 53.2 (42.6 to 63.6) | 81.4 | 0.48 (0.37 to 0.59) | 0.82 |
* No’ and ‘Do not know’ answers combined for analysis.
†Overall agreement is the proportion considered ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ by both clinical and VA methods (ie, (true positives+true negatives)/total).
‡VA respondents were only asked about ART initiation if they answered ‘Yes’ to HIV question; decedents who were confirmed HIV positive, but were not reported as such by the respondent, were not included in this analysis. Of the 306 individuals reported as HIV positive at VA, 212 (69.3%) had initiated ART and 94 (30.7%) had not.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CCC, chance-corrected concordance; DNK, do not know; TB, tuberculosis; VA, verbal autopsy; Κ, Cohen’s kappa.