The sensitivity, specificity, and agreement of a point of care method: an assessment of the diagnostic accuracy.

The use of new technologies can improve screening in communities with difficult access to health. This article aims to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and agreement of a point of care test in comparison to laboratory methods for the determination of glucose (GLI), triglyceride (TG), and total cholesterol (TC) concentrations. This prospective study used data from the remaining adult population of quilombolas in Brazil. Laboratory tests using conventional methods for the analysis of venipuncture samples were used as a standard method to measure the concentrations of GLI (mg/dL), TG (mg/dL), and TC (mg/dL) and compared to the metered dose from the collection of fingertip capillary blood (point of care). Contingency tables (2x2) were used to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of the methods. Lin and Bland & Altman coefficients were used to statistically assess agreement, the level of significance was 5%. There was substantial agreement between the methods for measuring TG and poor agreement for of TC and GLI. Analysis of the Bland & Altman coefficients revealed that the fingertip method did not produce good measures. The point of care method did not offer a good ability to measure compared to that of the reference laboratory method.