Finger-Stick Hemoglobin Test in Geriatric Patients.

BACKGROUND

Finger-stick hemoglobin tests, also known as point-of-care testing (POCT) for hematology, offer a convenient and minimally invasive method for obtaining blood samples and conducting various hematological analyses. Given the paucity of studies in the literature assessing fingertip hemoglobin levels in geriatric patients and the simplicity of the method, the objective of this study was to measure fingertip blood hemoglobin levels in the geriatric population.

METHODS

The study was conducted on geriatric patients who presented to the emergency department of a tertiary teaching and research hospital. In the study, peripheral blood samples were collected from the participants via the fingertip venipuncture method and were compared to conventional hemoglobin results.

RESULTS

The study included 130 geriatric patients. The mean corpuscular hemoglobin value, as determined by the conventional method, was found to be 11.68 ± 2.66 g/dL, while the mean value obtained by fingertip measurement was 10.82 ± 3.01 g/dL. The mean value for hemoglobin was found to be -0.8615 (95% confidence interval: -1.1864 to -0.5367), while the mean value for hematocrit was -4.7969 (95% confidence interval: -5.9248 to -3.6690).

CONCLUSIONS

Finger-stick hemoglobin tests represent a significant advancement in point-of-care diagnostics, offering a practical alternative to traditional blood sampling methods.