Abstract To analyze the application situation of ROC curve in the articles from the Chinese Journal of Family Planning, and to provide suggestions for standardized application of ROC curve. Methods: The articles related to ROC curve from the Chinese Journal of Family Planning between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022 was retrieved in CNKI. According to whether the multiindicators used to predict the ending of the disease jointly or not in the articles, these articles were divided into Separate group and the Joint group. The variation tendency of the published number, the research fields, the application conditions and the statistical software and models of these articles were analyzed. Results: A total of 323 articles were retrieved. According to the inclusion and exclusion standards, 11 articles were excluded and 312 articles were eventually included, including 125 articles in Separate groups and 187 articles in the Joint group. The most commonly used statistical software in these articles was SPSS, with a number of 303 articles, accounting for 97.1%. 286 articles only mentioned ROC curve was used to analyze the diagnostic value without pointing out the specific fitting method. The number of the articles with ROC curve analysis from 2018 to 2022 had increased year by year. The top three number of the articles were about perinatal medicine (187 articles, 59.9%), gynecological oncology (45 articles, 14.4%) and ordinary gynecological science (40 articles, 12.8%). M(P25, P75) of the samples of the articles was 180.5 (127, 242). The number of articles with the sample less than 100 cases was 29 articles, accounting for 9.3%. M(P25, P75) of the overall AUC values was 0.812 (0.747, 0.881), 68.3% of AUC value was between 0.7 to 0.9, and AUC values of 7 articles were less than 0.5, accounting for 0.6%. In the studies with two or more indicators about the diagnostic test, there were 149 articles without statistical difference test of AUC values, and which only reported the levels of the diagnostic values among the indicators. 29 articles reported only P value of the statistical comparison, without the specific statistical comparison methods. Conclusion: In the application of ROC curve of the articles, the appropriate model should be selected, and it is recommended to report the ROC model and statistical software used in the “methods part” of the articles detailly. If there are multiple indicators comparisons, statistical tests are required and the corresponding Z values and P values should be reported.
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