MedSysEvidence-graded reference

MedSys / Emergencies / Reading a urine dipstick / Interpreter

Dipstick UTI interpreter

Set the ten pads to match the strip in front of you, say who the sample is from, and see what the pattern suggests — including when the answer is that a strip should not be deciding this.

Essentials Reading a urine dipstick Urinary tract infection
What this is and is not. It reports patterns and next steps, and it will not give you a diagnosis, because a strip cannot. It is built around the Multistix 10 SG pads and the interference that makes them misleading. Context changes the answer more than the colours do — which is why the checkboxes matter, and why ticking "over 65" or "catheter" will stop it answering the infection question at all.

If you are unsure what a pad said

Set it to negative rather than guessing. A strip read at the wrong time is worse than no strip, and the leukocyte pad in particular keeps developing — a colour that appeared after two minutes is not a weak positive, it is nothing. The read times and the full interpretation of each pad are in the chapter.