Specimen Rejection Rate and Associated Factors among Referred Specimens Through Referral Network to Debre Markos Referral Hospital for Laboratory Testing, Debre Markos, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-06
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: Clinical laboratory errors could be classified as pre analytical, analytical and postanalytical. The majority of laboratory errors emerge from the manually intensive activities of thepre analytical phase, mainly those related to collection, handling, transportation, preparation andstorage of diagnostic specimens.
Objective: The main aim of this study was to assess the specimen rejection rate and associatedfactors among the referred specimens through referral network to Debre Markos referral hospitalfor laboratory testing.
Method: Retrospective study was conducted at Debre Markos referral hospital laboratory fromJanuary 2016 to December 2019 to evaluate trends of specimen rejection rate. In addition,prospective cross sectional study design was applied from January 2020 to April 2020 toinvestigate further associated factors of specimen rejection. Data was collected from specimenreception log book and from referring facilities using developed checklist. Finally, statisticalanalysis was done with excel 2007 and SPSS version 20.0 software.
Result: From the total of 35673 specimens submitted to Debre Markos referral hospitallaboratory from January 2016 to December 2019, a total of 560 (1.57%) specimens wererejected. The specimen rejection rates in each year were 2.30%, 1.59%, 1.42% and 1.26 %respectively from 2016 to 2019. Moreover, of 2750 specimens submitted to the laboratory duringJanuary 2020 to April 2020, a total of 37 (1.34%) specimens were rejected. Specimen collectortraining status and experience had significant association with specimen rejection rate (P= 0.01& P=0.04 respectively).
Conclusion: Although specimen rejection rate among referred specimens was improvedgradually from 2016 to 2019, still needs more interventions to meet the established targetspecimen rejection rate (0.3%).Hence, training of health professionals on specimen collection,handling and transportation of requested tests, appropriate preventive and corrective actionscould improve the problem in specimen referral network.
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Specimen rejection rate, clinical laboratory errors, laboratory quality management system