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Self-Sampling by Adolescents at Home: Assessment of the Feasibility to Successfully Collect Blood Microsamples by Inexperienced Individuals

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Abstract

Blood microsampling has increasingly attracted interest in the past decades as a more patient-centric sampling approach, offering the possibility to collect a minimal volume of blood following a finger or arm prick at home. In addition to conventional dried blood spots (DBS), many different devices allowing self-sampling of blood have become available. Obviously, the success of home-sampling can only be assured when (inexperienced) users collect samples of good quality. Therefore, the feasibility of six different microsampling devices to collect capillary blood by inexperienced adolescents at home was evaluated. Participants (n = 95) were randomly assigned to collect blood (dried or liquid) at different time points using four of six different self-sampling devices (i.e., DBS, Mitra volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS), Capitainer B, Tasso M20, Minicollect tube and Tasso+ serum separator tube (SST)). The quality of the samples was visually inspected and analytically determined. Moreover, the participants’ satisfaction was assessed via questionnaires. Although a majority succeeded based on the visual inspection, the success rate differed largely between the different devices. In general, the lowest success rate was obtained for the Minicollect tubes, although there is an opportunity and need for improvement for the other self-sampling devices as well. Hence, this also emphasizes the importance to assess the quality of samples collected by the target population prior to study initiation. In addition, visual classification by a trained individual was confirmed based on assessment of the analytical variability between replicates. Finally, self-sampling at home was overall (very) positively received by the participants.

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Data Availability

Data supporting the findings of the presented study are available on request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Caroline Teughels, Karen Van Campenhout, Jelle Vlaanderen, Hilde Van De Maele, Adrian Covaci, Isabel De Boosere, Dries Vloemans, Maja Mampaey and Francesco Dal Dosso for their valuable input during our discussions. Moreover, the authors also want to thank Caroline Adriaensen, Karlien Willems and Iris Maldoy for their assistance during the recruitment of the participants.

Funding

This study was commissioned, financed and steered by the department of environment of the Flemish government.

LB would like to thank the FWO Research Foundation Flanders for granting her a PhD fellowship (11M2324N).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Bioanalysis, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ottergemsesteenweg 46, Ghent, B-9000, Belgium

    Laura Boffel, Katleen Van Uytfanghe & Christophe P. Stove

  2. Provincial Institute of Hygiene, Antwerp, Belgium

    Anskje Van Mensel & Elly Den Hond

  3. VITO Health, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Mol, Belgium

    Janne Pauwels & Jos Bessems

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  1. Laura Boffel
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  2. Anskje Van Mensel
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  3. Janne Pauwels
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  6. Katleen Van Uytfanghe
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the conceptualization and design of the study. AVM and EDH were responsible for recruitment of the participants. LB and AVM contributed to the acquisition of the data and performed the data analyses. LB, KVU and CS drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and critically revised and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Christophe P. Stove.

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Research involving human subjects complied with all relevant national regulations, institutional policies and is in accordance with the tenets of the Helsinki Declaration (as revised in 2013), and has been approved by the Antwerp University Hospital Ethical Committee (B3002023000118).

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Written informed consent was obtained from all participants and one of their parents.

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None of the other authors has any competing interest.

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Boffel, L., Van Mensel, A., Pauwels, J. et al. Self-Sampling by Adolescents at Home: Assessment of the Feasibility to Successfully Collect Blood Microsamples by Inexperienced Individuals. AAPS J 26, 75 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1208/s12248-024-00947-1

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