Examples include diabetes mellitus, various forms of glomerulonephritis, and chronic urinary tract infections. The most cost-effective device used to screen urine is a paper or plastic dipstick. This microchemistry system has been available for many years and allows qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis within one minute by simple but careful observation. The color change occurring on each segment of the strip is compared to a color chart to obtain results. However, a careless doctor, nurse, or assistant is entirely capable of misreading or misinterpreting the results.
Microscopic urinalysis requires only a relatively inexpensive light microscope.
The first part of a urinalysis is direct visual observation. Normal, fresh urine is pale to dark yellow or amber in color and clear. Turbidity or cloudiness may be caused by excessive cellular material or protein in the urine or may develop from crystallization or precipitation of salts upon standing at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Clearing of the specimen after addition of a small amount of acid indicates that precipitation of salts is the probable cause of tubidity. If the sample contained many red blood cells, it would be cloudy as well as red.