Urinalysis by means of Test Strips
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Types of urine specimen

A healthy adult excretes about 1500 mL of urine daily. The overall amount of urine excreted during 24 hours should preferably be obtained for urinalysis, be it quantitative or qualitative. However, this mode of urine collection is quite questionable, because not all people comply with the instructions and may not present total 24-hour urine for examination. Urine is collected into clean containers in three ways:
1. random specimen (individual specimen),
2. diurnal or nocturnal specimen collected over a certain period of time, and
3. 24-hour urine.
• Random specimen
This type of urine specimen can be obtained at any time of the day, however, the first morning urine is recommended as it is most concentrated and approximates the composition of 24-hour urine. The physicochemical examination of urine is performed on fresh urine without the addition of preservative.
• Diurnal or nocturnal urine specimen or urine specimen collected over a certain period of time
The urine collected in this way is used for urinalysis in some disorders, e.g. alimentary glycosuria, proteinuria, etc. The mode of urine collection, storage and preservation depends on the tests to be performed.
• 24-hour urine
For quantitative assays, 24-hour urine specimens should be carefully collected and preferably refrigerated. Certain preservatives should be added if chemically instable compounds are to be determined. The type of preservative depends on the analyte to be determined. 10% solution of thymol in isopropanol (5 ml for 24-hour urine) is most commonly used as preservative.
For routine urine examination, it is recommended to use the first morning urine obtained at least 8 hours from the last void. For urinalysis by means of test strip, any random urine specimen can be used, however, the time of urine sampling should be considered on result interpretation.
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