Hepatitis B prevalence in emergency physicians

✍ Scribed by KV Iserson; E Criss

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 155 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1097-6760
• DOI: 10.1016/s0196-0644(84)80199-7

✦ Synopsis

th e emergency medicine literature. Four of.these tests were evaluated for specificity, sensitivity, ease of performance, accuracy, reproducibility, precision, ease of interpretation, and expense. Second-and third-year emergency medicine residents were given samples of blood and were asked to perform each of 4 spot tests on the samples. They were told that the samples might or might not contain~carboxyhemoglobin. The reagents and instructions were available, but no technical assistance was given. The residents were asked to record the results of the tests and answer a questionnaire. Test results were analyzed by linear regression and for within-ru n precision. The evaluators felt that the tests were inexpensive, required a minimum of technical expeJrtise, and were easy to perform and interpret. None of the evaluators had any prior experience with carboxyhemoglobin spot tests. It was found that the available spot tests for carboxyhemoglobin, found in the literature, are unable to accurately determine clinically significant levels of carboxyhemoglobin.