'I'm A Surgeon ― Here's The Truth About Home Health Tests'

Even if we ignore the ‘medical misogyny’ that parliament says forces women and girls to “suck up” serious health conditions, or the racial bias that can lead to “dismissive” care, going to the doctors is rarely fun. 

So it makes sense that some of us turn to home tests ― which claim to detect bacterial, blood, and bowel issues, without the user leaving the comfort of their own homes ― in our hours of worry. 

In a recent TikTok, however, Dr Karan Rajan claimed these tests aren’t always as failsafe as we might hope. 

According to the GI surgeon and lecturer, “if you’re considering getting at at-home test, you could be gambling with your health.”

Why?

Dr Rajan used the example of a home faeces test to make his point. 

The tests you can buy over the counter are “often not as specific or as sensitive as the ones used in a professional healthcare setting,” he suggests, which may lead to false positives or false negatives. 

Neither of those are ideal, the doctor explains, as a false positive can cause you to seek invasive care for issues you may not have while false negatives might make you ignore a serious problem. 

“Ultimately all of these tests still need professional interpretation,” the surgeon said (manufacturers are required under the IVDD to advise users to seek medical advice based on their results), “so if you poop blood test says everything is clear and it’s all negative, that doesn’t automatically mean that everything is fine.” 

“If you’re still having symptoms,” he continued, “I might still want you to have further investigations to find out what the diagnosis is.” 

A 2018 paper from the British Journal of General Practice found that “There is no evaluation of analytical performance for the majority of tests.” 

They added that though these tests have a potential to benefit patients (at-home HIV tests, which “require more extensive evaluation” due to their high-risk nature, doubled testing uptake, they say), they add the pros will only outweigh the cons if “regulatory systems are rigorous in assessing clinical performance in the population for whom the tests are marketed, and if high-quality comprehensible information about the performance of tests is made available to clinicians and the public.”

What’s the issue, though?

Aside from potentially leading to false positives or negatives, Dr Karan claims at-home tests “feed into health anxieties for profit.”

Indeed the 2018 British Journal of General Practice report says “self-testers may be more likely to be the ‘worried well’ than those attending primary care.” 

They add, “time- and cost-saving benefits may be eliminated by clinicians repeating the test if they feel (perhaps justifiably) unable to rely on the results.”

Still, the NHS advises that home pregnancy tests are mostly accurate if you follow the instructions correctly, and even offer some home testing ― such as for Hepatitis C ― themselves.

This, of course, will be reviewed by NHS medical professionals.