Document Detail


Impact of color blindness on recognition of blood in body fluids.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  11176773     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
BACKGROUND: Color blindness is a common hereditary X-linked disorder. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether color blindness affects the ability to detect the presence of blood in body fluids. METHODS: Ten color-blind subjects and 20 sex- and age-matched control subjects were shown 94 photographs of stool, urine, or sputum. Frank blood was present in 57 (61%) of the photographs. Surveys were done to determine if board-certified internists had ever considered whether color blindness would affect detection of blood and whether an inquiry on color blindness was included in their standard medical interview. RESULTS: Color-blind subjects were significantly less able to identify correctly whether pictures of body fluids showed blood compared with non-color-blind controls (P =.001); the lowest rate of correct identifications occurred with pictures of stool (median of 26 [70%] of 37 for color-blind subjects vs 36.5 [99%] of 37 for controls; P<.001). The more severely color-blind subjects were significantly less accurate than those with less severe color deficiency (P =.009). Only 2 (10%) of the 21 physicians had ever considered the possibility that color blindness might affect the ability of patients to detect blood, and none routinely asked their patients about color blindness. CONCLUSIONS: Color blindness impairs recognition of blood in body fluids. Color-blind individuals and their health care providers need to be made aware of this limitation.
Authors:
M J Reiss; D A Labowitz; S Forman; G P Wormser
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Archives of internal medicine     Volume:  161     ISSN:  0003-9926     ISO Abbreviation:  Arch. Intern. Med.     Publication Date:  2001 Feb 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2001-02-22     Completed Date:  2001-04-05     Revised Date:  2004-11-17    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0372440     Medline TA:  Arch Intern Med     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  461-5     Citation Subset:  AIM; IM    
Affiliation:
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Adult
Aged
Body Fluids*
Color Vision Defects*
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Occult Blood*
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
Arch Intern Med. 2001 Oct 8;161(18):2266-7; author reply 2267   [PMID:  11575994 ]
Arch Intern Med. 2001 Oct 8;161(18):2266; author reply 2267   [PMID:  11575993 ]
Arch Intern Med. 2001 Oct 8;161(18):2265-6; author reply 2267   [PMID:  11575992 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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