(HealthDay News) — Patient-performed rapid antigen tests (RATs) are reliable for COVID-19, with comparable sensitivity and specificity to clinician-performed RATs, according to a study published online Feb. 14 in Microbiology Spectrum.
Mary Jane E. Vaeth, from the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital, and colleagues conducted a single-center study to assess the accuracy of self-performed RATs for COVID-19. The self-administered BinaxNOW RATs were compared with clinician-performed RATs and against laboratory molecular testing as the gold standard.
The researchers found that 14.9% of the 953 participants were positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 as determined by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. For both self- and clinician-performed RATs, sensitivity and specificity were similar (sensitivity: 83.9 and 88.2%, respectively; specificity: 99.8 and 99.6%, respectively). Similar results were obtained in subgroup comparisons based on age and race. Of the positive results, 5.2% were potentially missed due to participant misinterpretation of the self-test card. The accuracy of the false-positive rate for RATs was comparable to that of clinician-administered tests.
“Our study’s findings provide strong evidence of the accuracy of patient-performed RATs, highlighting their equivalent accuracy to clinician-performed RATs,” the authors write.
