Urinary Tract Infections (UTI): Repetition of Urine Dipstick Test (Nursing)

00:01 Hi, welcome to our video series on interpreting lab values.

00:05 In this part of this series, we're going to look at how you can do a urine dipstick test to detect a UTI or a Urinary Tract Infection.

00:13 Now you've got three pictures on the screen.

00:17 This talks about the three phases of the test.

00:20 First one, you see the urine falling into the specimen cup.

00:23 Asked to represent the patient voiding a sample of urine into a clean, uncontaminated container.

00:30 Now, we take the time to remind you of that because some things need to go into a sterile container.

00:36 But for a dipstick test, it can just be a clean, uncontaminated container.

00:42 Let's move to the middle.

00:43 We've got a timer there and the urine sample and the dipstick.

00:47 Well, you see we have 2-5 seconds.

00:49 That's to remind you that when you put the dipstick in the urine, you want to let it hang out in there for two to five seconds, because you want those squares to get really saturated enough to have a reaction.

01:01 Now, when you remove the strip, always remember to kind of dab off the extra urine.

01:06 But then you'll see we've got another timer that says 30, 60, and 120 s.

01:11 That's to remind you that different parameters, different boxes, or different substances are read at specific periods of time.

01:19 So you want to make sure that you wait the correct amount of time to compare the dipstick, that's been dipped in the urine, with the color chart provided on the bottle.

01:28 Okay, it's really 1, 2, 3...

01:31 that easy.

01:32 You just need to be very careful that you follow the directions for that specific urine dipstick.