The Effect of Open Dipstick Urine Storage Duration on The Onboard Stability of Potential of Hydrogen (PH) and Specific Gravity (SG) Parameters

The urine dipstick test is one of the urine examination methods that can describe the general health of the body and is useful in confirming the diagnosis of a disease. This examination is relatively cheap, easy, fast, and has good sensitivity and specificity although there are some limitations, one of which is onboard stability. The parameters examined on the urine dipstick vary from a minimum of 3 to 14 parameters. The basis of observation of the urine dipstick examination result is the colour change on the test strip. The onboard stability of urine dipsticks averages around 3 months from the time of opening the package. Assessment of the urine dipstick is based on colour change. PH and SG (specific gravity) are some of the parameters on the urine dipstick that can describe the quality of urine. However, the PH and SG values are also affected by the length of storage after the packaging is opened. This study aims to observe the effect of the long storage time of urine dipstick on Onboard stability. Of the 47 urine samples examined during the 2 months of the study, namely July-August 2024 using urine dipsticks which were grouped into 5 and then divided and stored in several bottles, the temporary results of this study were that there were no differences in PH and SG values between the results of the examination of groups 1 to 6. The short research time with a relatively small number of samples may not be able to describe the effect of long storage of urine dipstick on PH and SG parameters. More samples and longer storage duration are needed to get the expected research results.