Poor quality test results. When do you accept them?

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The ATS/ERS have published standards for most Pulmonary Function tests. These standards include the criteria that are used for assessing test quality. What these standards don’t address however, is how poor a test’s quality can be yet still be acceptable for reporting.

We’ve all had patients that aren’t able to perform tests correctly. There can be many reasons why this happens. Lack of comprehension due to cultural or language barriers. Dementia. Extreme shortness of breath. Fatigue. Neuromuscular disease. Whatever the reason, you’ve done the tests with a patient and gotten the best you think you can get, how bad do they have to be before you don’t report them?It could be argued that any test results that do not meet ATS/ERS criteria should not be accepted or reported. If this was the case, however, many of our patients would never have any test results reported at all so there has to be some leeway. An opposing argument could be that any test result should be accepted because it at least shows the minimum a patient is capable of. But because poor quality results can imply the presence of a serious lung disease when it may not actually be present there has to be a point at which results should not be accepted.

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Poor quality test results. When do you accept them?