Home-voided Urine Specimens in Women. Diagnostic Agreement with Clean-catch Midstream Specimens

Abstract

One hundred and fifty women who brought a home-voided urine sample to a general practitioner were asked at the same consultation to provide another sample under controlled conditions. Seventy-three women had lower urinary tract symptoms and 77 were asymptomatic.

The two samples were analysed for pyuria (S 5 leucocytes/HPF) and bacteriuria (⩾ 104 v. ⩾ 10⁵ cfu/ml). The agreement when diagnosing pyuria and bacteriuria was estimated by Kappa (K).

The home-voided sample was taken with adequate sampling technique by only 12% of women. Moreover, its bladder incubation time was twice that of the surgery sample (5.4 h v. 2.4 h). There was, however, no difference in the distribution of pyuria or bacteriuria between the paired samples.

Agreement, which was high for the diagnosis of pyuria (K = 0.80), was significantly lower for the diagnosis of bacteriuria (K = 0.52, P < 0.01).

A home-voided sample seems sufficient in the diagnosis of the dysuria-pyuria syndrome in women.

Key Words:

• diagnostic agreement
• pyuria
• bacteriuria
• female
• family practice