Citation

Pate LA, Hamilton JD, Park RS, Strobel RM. J. Stud. Alcohol 1993; 54(5): 520-521.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8412140

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the clinical usefulness of a saliva alcohol dipstick by comparing dipstick saliva alcohol concentrations to simultaneous blood and urine alcohol concentrations. The sample consisted of 211 saliva tests and blood alcohol concentrations and 189 urine alcohol concentrations. The dipsticks had a specificity of 0.965, a sensitivity of 0.895, a positive predictive value of 0.850, a negative predictive value of 0.977 and a Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient of 0.609 for blood alcohol concentrations and salivary alcohol concentrations, suggesting that the saliva dipstick is useful as a qualitative test in certain settings but is less useful than previously reported as a semiquantitative test.

Language: en