Drug Test – Follows Screening And Confirmatory Test

• Author: Smart7777
• Filed under: Medicine
• Date: Nov 19,2008

Determining if a person is under the influence of any drug is considered very important by the Employers, Law Enforcement Officers, Sports Officials and School Authorities just to make the surroundings healthy and to help people lead a healthy life. Monitoring behavioral changes in an individual may or may not confirm the use of drugs. It may be other factors too. So Drug testing helps to determine if such abnormal behavior is due to intake of drugs or not.

Visible symptoms like a general lack of interest, a fall in grades and abandonment from family members if notice in youngsters then it can be concluded that they are victims of drug abuse. Mood swings to a feeling of low self-esteem also says that the person is using drugs. Change in style of dressing or taste in music and repeated absenteeism from school and are also some of the visible symptoms of drug abuse. Behavioral changes that are found among the employees using drugs at a work place are clearly visible through a decrease in their productivity.

Drug testing procedure follows two-step process. For instance say a urine sample is taken from the individual and it is divided in two parts. One part of the sample collected is tested for screening using immunoassay, which is a relatively simple, inexpensive, yet highly accurate test. The second step depends on the first step. If the first test is negative, then the result is declared to be negative, and if the result of the first test turns out to be positive, then the second test of confirmation follows. This test is conducted using the other part of the sample using a more complicated and more costly technique known as gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) or thin-layer chromatography (TLC). And if this test too displays a positive result then the person undergoing the test is declared to be under the influence of drugs. And on the other hand if this test shows negative, the previous test is deemed incorrect.

The process of giving a drug test should be done with care. Ensure that sample is sample is safe from alteration. Clean containers must be used to collect the sample. The sample must be checked immediately for acidity and temperature. Besides these care should be taken that the containers should be labeled in the presence of witness and furthermore, the containers should be sealed properly to prevent alteration. Watch out that the test should not be performed by a layperson and look out that the samples should be tested by licensed labs. All these factors are very important because the finally the results depends on all these factors. So take care of these factors to get the accurate results.

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