TIMING OF THE BREATH ANALYZER - DOES IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The purpose of this article is to examine in an emergency room (ER) po pulation the concordance of self-reports of no alcohol consumption pri or to injury with breath-analyzer readings in two groups: (1) those pa tients from whom reports were obtained after they were breath analyzed compared to (2) patients from whom reports were obtained prior to obt aining the breath-analyzer reading. Data were collected on a probabili ty sample of patients attending three health maintenance organization ERs. Among those sampled were 159 patients admitted for initial treatm ent of an injury, who were breath analyzed within 6 hours of the event and reported no drinking following the event that lead to injury. Of these, 119 were breath analyzed prior to the interview, and none who r eported not drinking were positive on the breath analyzer, while of th e 37 breath analyzed after the interview, only one was positive who ha d reported not drinking. Obtaining the breath-analyzer reading followi ng the interview was not found to affect the rate of refusal to provid e a breath-analyzer reading; however, it was found to adversely affect obtaining the breath-analyzer reading for other reasons. The data sug gest that the concordance of negative self-reports of consumption with breath-analyzer readings remains high in ER populations regardless of when the breath-analyzer reading is obtained; however, it appears bes t to obtain the reading prior to interviewing the patient for reasons explained below.