Saliva alcohol reagent strips in altered response protocols.
Publication/Presentation Date
1-1-1990
Abstract
The prehospital care provider has been limited in his or her initial assessment of patients due to having available only a limited number of simple diagnostic tests. There has not been an accurate field test available to rule out significant ethanol intoxication. We designed a prospective trial for the prehospital setting to test the utility of a rapid, semi-quantitative, saliva alcohol reagent strip for patients with an altered level of consciousness. We found that these strips were useful in ruling out significant ethanol intoxication as a cause of an altered level of consciousness with a sensitivity of 85.7% and a specificity of 94.4%, but were not useful in accurately predicting the blood alcohol level. We conclude that these reagent strips are useful in the prehospital setting to provide information about patients with an altered level of consciousness.
Volume
5
Issue
1
First Page
41
Last Page
43
ISSN
1049-023X
Published In/Presented At
Harpe, K. G., Yealy, D. M., Heller, M. B., Kaplan, R. M., & Fochtman, F. W. (1990). Saliva alcohol reagent strips in altered response protocols. Prehospital and disaster medicine, 5(1), 41–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049023x00026492
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
PubMedID
10171094
Department(s)
Department of Emergency Medicine
Document Type
Article