Comparison of urine dipstick test with urine culture in the diagnosis of community acquired urinary tract infection in a tertiary care hospital in Colombo District, Sri Lanka

Introduction: Community-acquired urinary tract infection (CA-UTI) is the second most common infection in the community. The gold standard for diagnosing urinary tract infections (UTIs) is urine culture. A urine dipstick can also be used to diagnose UTIs. This study was designed to compare the urine dipstick test with urine culture in the diagnosis of community-acquired urinary tract infections in a tertiary care hospital in the Colombo district, Sri Lanka.
Methods: Four hundred and eighty-nine urine samples were inoculated into cysteine-lactose-electrolyte-deficient agar. They were tested for the presence of nitrite and leukocytes using urine dipsticks, following the manufacturer's instructions.
Results: In the entire group, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the leukocyte esterase test were 91.92%, 76.15%, 91.41%, and 77.34%, respectively, and those of the nitrite test were 91.36%, 75.38%, 91.11%, and 75.97%, respectively.
Conclusion: The dipstick is a low-cost, user-friendly test that can be used in an outpatient setting to identify patients who require antibiotics. This will help in establishing antibiotic stewardship by limiting unnecessary prescriptions.