A comparative study of statistical protocols for external quality assessment of semen / 临床检验杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To compare the effects of different statistical protocols on the results of external quality assessment(EQA)of se-men,and select appropriate statistical protocols for the promotion of EQA of semen.Methods Taking sperm concentration as an ex-ample,the semen EQA data of 20 laboratories in Hunan Province in 2022 were selected,and the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional statistical scheme(TSS),robust statistical scheme(RSS)and traditional statistical scheme after eliminating the"outliers"(TSEOS)combined with robust statistical technology were analyzed and compared.Results The"outliers"could not be excluded from the sperm concentration data of the four groups in the TSS,which led to the difference between TSS and RSS or TSEOS.The num-ber of qualified laboratories for TSS and RSS were 19 vs 16,19 vs 16,19 vs 19,and 19 vs 19,respectively.Conclusion The results of RSS are similar to those of TSEOS.Compared with TSS,RSS do not need to remove outlier data steps,and are more suitable for se-men EQA data analysis with small data volume.