Assessment of Hematology Laboratory Specimen Rejection Rate and Associated Factors at Northwest, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND AND AIM

The rejection of the specimens can cause delays in diagnosis, putting patients in repeated specimen collection, leading to inconvenience and prolonged turnaround time. As a result, the laboratories should periodically determine the frequency of specimen rejections. The aim of this study is to assess the hematology laboratory specimen rejection rate and its associated factors.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2022 to February 2023. To assess the sample rejection rate and its associated factors, all blood specimens delivered to the laboratory during the study period were included. Data used to assess the sample rejection rate were collected using checklists, while data used to assess associated factors were collected through interviews. Epidata and STATA software were used for data enter and analysis, respectively. Descriptive statistics, along with bivariate and multivariate logistic analyses were used. The strength of the association between dependent and independent variables was measured using a 95% confidence interval.

RESULTS

A total of 27,242 blood specimens were assessed. From these, 982/27,242 (3.6%) blood specimens were rejected. Most of the specimens rejected were those submitted for manual hematocrit 190/1110 (17.1%) and peripheral morphology 30/170 (17.64%). The primary reasons for specimen rejection were hemolysis 239/27,242 (0.88%) and low-specimen quantity 221/27,242 (0.8%) were the main reasons for specimen rejection. Lack of adherence to standard operation procedures (SOP), specimens from the inpatient department (IPD). specimens from the emergency department, and specimens collected by non-laboratory health professionals increased the likelihood of sample rejection rate by 6.67, 2.44, 2.23, and 3.54 times, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The study found a relatively high specimen rejection rate in the study area. Thus, concerned bodies should provide need-based training for all professionals involved in hematology laboratory sample processing by prioritizing the most common causes and aggravating factors.