Daily Archives: May 3, 2013
24-hour Urine Test Instructions for Outpatients
Instructions on how to collect 24-hour urine tests in the outpatient settings (outside the hospitals). We suggest you choose a day that you are not very busy and it can be convenient for you to collect every drop of urine during that 24 hour. Start time can be any time but it will be more convenient for you to start from the time you wake up that day (lets call it Day First). Suppose you wake up at 6 in the morning and you have the urge to urinate. Void the way you normally do. That urine does not need to be collected. Flush down that urine as you normally do. Any urine after that should be collected for 24 hour.
Male patients can directly urinate in the jar provided by the clinic or laboratory. Female patients need to void in a urine specimen toilet collection hat and them empty it in the jar.
Urine specimen collection hat
If there is stool in the collection hat as well, you can still collect that urine but try not to mix the stool with urine and do not drop the stool in the jar.
During this 24-hour keep the jar either in refrigerator or in a cool box in contact with ice.
You should wake the next day (lets call it Day Two) the same time as you did on Day First (in this example at 6 am). You need to void at this time as you did in the rest of that 24-hour. It means this urine should be collected. Do not flush down this last urine.
This concludes the collection procedure.
Drop the jar at the clinic or laboratory the same day.
This technique will not be useful if you have no control over your urination (urinary incontinence) and you use diaper. In this case a urinary catheter should be inserted in the bladder for collection. Inform your physician about your urinary incontinence.
In patients who have gone through surgery on their bladder and have urostomy bag, 24 hour urine can be collected as above. At the start time, dump the urine in the bad and collect any urine after that for 24 hours as instructed.