Materials and methods
Subjects
Adult patients that were undergoing routine venous puncture
at their GP were asked to participate. Extra tubes (6 or
7) were drawn and submitted to different pre-analytical conditions.
The sample handling and the pre-analytical procedures
were carried out by the GP’s staff, nurses, secretaries
or laboratory technologists.In Centre A, four GPs recruited a total of 101 patients during
March 2006 and 105 patients during August 2006. The
samples were drawn between 08.00 and 09.30 am.
In Centre B, five primary healthcare centres each drew
samples from 20 patients (a total of 100 patients) in April
2006 and from 100 patients in September 2006.