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Home collection of urine for culture from infants by three methods: survey of parents' preferences and bacterial contamination rates

BMJ 2000; 320 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7245.1312 (Published 13 May 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;320:1312

Rapid Response:

Should this study change our practice ?

We read the article by Liaw et al (1) with interest and would like to
make the following points:

1. Parental attitudes to procedures will differ depending on the clinical
setting and how results of the investigation would affect management. It
would be wrong to extrapolate results from a non-acute research setting to
the acute clinical situation .We do not find any problems in obtaining
cooperation from parents for clean catch provided the clinical
importance of collecting an uncontaminated sample is explained to them.

2. The extra precautions that were taken in the controlled settings of a
study to prevent contamination would reduce the difference between clean
catch and other methods.

3. In the scenario of an acutely unwell and febrile child accurate
diagnosis and management is more important rather than parental
preferences for both doctors and parents.

We are also surprised that it was felt necessary to conduct a study
to show that parents would find collection of urine using pads or urine
bags easier than by clean catch.

Lynster C T Liaw, Deepa M Nayar, Stephen J Pedler, and Malcolm G
Coulthard
BMJ 2000; 320: 1312-1313

Competing interests: No competing interests

17 May 2000
Anuja Natarajan
Specialist Registrar and Clinical Research Fellow
R Lakshman
Sheffield Children's Hospital