Point-of-care testing of group A streptococcal antigen: performance evaluated by external quality assessment

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the overall performance of rapid antigen detection (RAD) in group A streptococcus (GAS) in Finland by using the results of external quality assurance (EQA) samples. We also compared the performance of laboratory professionals to that of nursing professionals...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases 2009, Vol.28 (1), p.17-20
Main Authors: Nissinen, A, Strandén, P, Myllys, R, Takkinen, J, Björkman, Y, Leinikki, P, Siitonen, A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antigens, Bacterial - analysis
Bacterial diseases
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Diagnostic Errors - statistics & numerical data
Finland
Health Services Research
Human bacterial diseases
Humans
Infectious diseases
Internal Medicine
Medical Microbiology
Medical sciences
Nurses
Observer Variation
Point-of-Care Systems
Quality assurance
Sensitivity and Specificity
Staphylococcal infections, streptococcal infections, pneumococcal infections
Streptococcal Infections - diagnosis
Streptococcal Infections - microbiology
Streptococcus pyogenes - immunology
Streptococcus pyogenes - isolation & purification
Studies
Technicians
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Summary:The purpose of this study was to evaluate the overall performance of rapid antigen detection (RAD) in group A streptococcus (GAS) in Finland by using the results of external quality assurance (EQA) samples. We also compared the performance of laboratory professionals to that of nursing professionals. Around 22,800 EQA results among a total of 383 laboratories and physician's offices were analysed. Vocational data on the personnel who carried out the tests were available for 10,088 EQA samples, 7,428 of which were tested by laboratory technicians and 2,531 by nursing staff. The best overall performance was found with GAS-negative samples: 99% of the reports were correct. In contrast, the overall performance was only 76% when the samples were weakly positive for GAS antigen. The laboratory technicians performed statistically significantly better than the nursing staff, with both strongly positive (correct results 98.9% vs. 95.1%, respectively; p
ISSN:0934-9723
1435-4373
DOI:10.1007/s10096-008-0580-9