Journal Information
Journal ID (publisher-id): BM
Journal ID (nlm-ta): Biochem Med (Zagreb)
Title: Biochemia Medica
Abbreviated Title: Biochem. Med. (Zagreb)
ISSN (print): 1330-0962
ISSN (electronic): 1846-7482
Publisher: Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine
Article Information
Copyright statement: ©Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine.
Copyright: 2020, Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry
License (open-access):
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Date received: 02 June 2020
Date accepted: 02 October 2020
Publication date (electronic): 15 December 2020
Publication date (print): 15 February 2021
Volume: 31
Issue: 1
Electronic Location Identifier: 010705
Publisher ID: bm-31-1-010705
DOI: 10.11613/BM.2021.010705
Utilization of biological variation data in the interpretation of laboratory test results – survey about clinicians’ opinion and knowledge
Fatma Hande Karpuzoglu[2]
Cihan Coskun[3]
Ebru Demirel Sezer[4]
Ozlem Goruroglu Ozturk[5]
Fatma Ucar[6]
Hikmet Can Cubukcu[7]
Fatma Demet Arslan[8]
Levent Deniz[9]
Mehmet Senes[10]
Mustafa Serteser[11]
Cevat Yazici[12]
Dogan Yucel[10]
Abdurrahman Coskun[11]
[1] Department of Medical Biochemistry, Kahramanmaras Necip Fazil City Hospital, Kahramanmaras, Turkey
[2] Department of Medical Biochemistry, Acibadem Labmed Clinical Laboratories, Istanbul, Turkey
[3] Department of Medical Biochemistry, Haydarpasa Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
[4] Department of Medical Biochemistry and Metabolism Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
[5] Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey
[6] Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Diskapi Yildirim Beyazit Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
[7] Department of Medical Biochemistry, Maresal Cakmak State Hospital, Erzurum, Turkey
[8] Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Health Sciences, Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, Izmir, Turkey
[9] Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Health Sciences, Istanbul Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
[10] Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Health Sciences, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
[11] Department of Medical Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Acıbadem Mehmet Ali Aydınlar University, Istanbul, Turkey
[12] Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey
Author notes:
[*] Corresponding author: hmyozemre@gmail.com
Introduction
To interpret test results correctly, understanding of the variations that affect test results is essential. The aim of this study is: 1) to evaluate the clinicians’ knowledge and opinion concerning biological variation (BV), and 2) to investigate if clinicians use BV in the interpretation of test results.
Materials and methods
This study uses a questionnaire comprising open-ended and close-ended questions. Questions were selected from the real-life numerical examples of interpretation of test results, the knowledge about main sources of variations in laboratories and the opinion of clinicians on BV. A total of 399 clinicians were interviewed, and the answers were evaluated using a scoring system ranked from A (clinician has the highest level of knowledge and the ability of using BV data) to D (clinician has no knowledge about variations in laboratory). The results were presented as number (N) and percentage (%).
Results
Altogether, 60.4% of clinicians have knowledge of pre-analytical and analytical variations; but only 3.5% of them have knowledge related to BV. The number of clinicians using BV data or reference change value (RCV) to interpret measurements results was zero, while 79.4% of clinicians accepted that the difference between two measurements results located within the reference interval may be significant.
Keywords: biological variation; laboratory error; patient safety; reference change value
