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Home Test Kits ::
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Ask You Doctor
While convenience, confidentiality, and the cost-saving benefits of home testing cannot be overlooked,
doctors are concerned about the availability of medical tests that encourage self-diagnosis because of the
possibility that the results could be misinterpreted and treatment might be delayed.
For example, Sandy Stewart, Ph.D., a research biomedical engineer in the FDA's Center for Devices and
Radiological Health (CDRH), says that blood pressure monitors should be used for tracking blood pressure
readings between doctor's visits. "Users should never change their medications based on a home blood
pressure reading." If there are significant changes, he says, the user should see his or her doctor
immediately. "The blood pressure reading taken in the physician's office must be the final word."
In addition, the diagnostic value of home test kits can be affected by users who don't follow instructions
carefully. In an effort to conceive a child, Donna Trossevin of Frederick, Md., bought from a local
pharmacy an ovulation predictor that uses body temperature to help pinpoint a woman's most fertile time.
Although the kit consisted of only a thermometer and special paper to chart her daily temperatures,
Trossevin says it was difficult to get accurate readings because "if you don't hold the instrument just so,
you can easily misread the numbers." And the half a degree increase from a person's normal temperature that
a woman is looking for to predict ovulation "is such a small window of opportunity and easy to miss," says
Trossevin. "I just never knew 100 percent whether I was ovulating or not."
Those who rely on home tests also miss out on pre- and post-test counseling, which offer information,
support, competence, interpretation, and follow-up advice to consumers that only a health-care professional
can give. The benefit of having a health-care professional involved in a test or screening procedure is
that the results can be evaluated within the context of the whole health picture, not just one test.
Furthermore, receiving news of potential pregnancy, illness, or infection over the phone, or from the color
of a test strip, can be devastating.
"The first 72 hours following a positive result for an illness as serious as HIV is when people are most
likely to hurt themselves," says Edward Geraty, a licensed clinical social worker with Behavioral Science
Associates in Baltimore. Geraty says it's important to have a face-to-face relationship when delivering the
news of a positive HIV test. Without it, he says, "there's a psychological component of the person's
illness that is completely left out of the process."
Bob Barret, Ph.D., agrees. A professor of counseling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
Barret believes that home test kits, particularly for HIV, "are best used only by those who are
well-educated about the disease, and who are in touch with their emotions and have a good support system
around them."
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