How Accurate are Home Pregnancy Tests?
- Report By: Katie Buch, MD - Emergency Medicine Resident
- Search checked by Jeffrey Jones, MD - Research Director, EM Residency Program
- Institution: Grand Rapids Medical Education & Research/Michigan State University
- Date Submitted: 3rd June 2009
- Last Modified: 5th June 2009
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Status:
Blue (submitted but not checked)
Three Part Question
In [women of child bearing age], are [home pregnancy tests] accurate in determining [pregnancy]?Clinical Scenario
A 22 year old female presents to the emergency department with a positive home pregnancy test. She had been sexually active and her last menstrual perior only 2 weeks ago. She wants to know if her home test is correct.Search Strategy
Medline 1950-05/09 using OVID interface, Cochrane Library (2009), PubMed clinical queries.[(exp pregnancy tests) AND (exp sensitivity and specificity)]. Limit to human and English.
Search Outcome
47 papers were found of which 3 were relevant to the three part question. These studies included a meta-analysis (1998) and 2 clinical studies published after 1998.Relevant Paper(s)
| Author, date and country | Patient group | Study type (level of evidence) | Outcomes | Key results | Study Weaknesses |
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