Accuracy of anemia diagnosis by physical examination.
OBJECTIVE
Quantification of clinical signs such as the presence or absence of pallor at clinical examination is a key step for making diagnoses. The aim was, firstly, to evaluate two methods for anemia diagnosis by physical examination: four-level evaluation (crosses method: +/++/+++/++++) and estimated hemoglobin values, both performed by medical students and staff physicians; and secondly, to investigate whether there was any improvement in assessment accuracy according to the number of years in clinical practice.


METHODS
Forty-four randomly selected physicians and medical students in a tertiary care teaching hospital completed a physical examination on five patients with mild to severe anemia.


METHODS
The observers used four-level evaluation and also predicted the hemoglobin level. Both methods were compared with the real hemoglobin value as the gold standard.


RESULTS
The mean estimated hemoglobin value correlated better with the real hemoglobin values than did the four-level evaluation method, for attending physicians, residents and students (Spearman's correlation coefficients, respectively: 1.0, 1.0 and 0.9 for guessed hemoglobin and -0.8, -0.8 and -0.7 for the four-level evaluation method). There were no differences in the mean "guessed" hemoglobin values from attending physicians, residents and students. However, the correlation between guessed hemoglobin value and the four-level method was positive for attending physicians, thus suggesting some kind of improvement with time (p = 0.04).


CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that estimated hemoglobin was more accurate than evaluation by the four-level method. The number of years in clinical practice did not improve the accuracy of clinical examination for anemia.
Benseñor
Isabela Martins
IM
Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. isabensenor@hu.usp.br
Calich
Ana Luísa Garcia
AL
Brunoni
André Russowsky
AR
Espírito-Santo
Fábio Ferreira do
FF
Mancini
Renato Lendimuth
RL
Drager
Luciano Ferreira
LF
Lotufo
Paulo Andrade
PA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000740:Anemia / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D002983:Clinical Competence; D005260:Female; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D008875:Middle Aged; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013337:Students, Medical
D006454:Hemoglobins