Alcohol Abuse Advice

Different Types of Alcohol Testing

Alcohol tests are conducted to know whether the person has consumed alcohol or not. Alcohol testing is conducted in different ways using urine, blood, saliva and breathe specimens. Every test has its own importance and advantages of using it. Results of some alcohol testing can be used as evidence for legal considerations.

Types of alcohol testing
Basically there are four types of alcohol tests. They are Urine alcohol test, Blood alcohol test, Alcohol breathalyzer test and Saliva alcohol test. The following are the different types of alcohol testing.

• Urine Alcohol Test:
As the name goes urine alcohol test is conducted on urine specimen of the person for whom the test is conducted. This test indicates the presence of alcohol in a person’s body, but it takes up to 2 hours for alcohol to show up in person’s urine. Urine alcohol test is less expensive when compared to other alcohol tests. This test can also be conducted at home but for accurate results lab verification is required.

• Blood Alcohol Test:
Blood alcohol test is accurate and expensive when compared to other alcohol tests. Blood alcohol test is conducted on blood specimen and helps in identifying the actual content of alcohol present in blood. Blood tests are least used method in testing for alcohol because of their high cost.

• Alcohol Breathalyzer Test:
The common form of breath alcohol testing is breathalyzer test. Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is indirectly estimated by measuring the amount of alcohol in one’s breath. There may be inaccurate results due person’s breathing rate may change by vigorous exercise. If law enforcement personnel fail to use the breathalyzers properly or fail to maintain the device properly, then the results may not be accurate.

• Saliva Alcohol Test:
Presence of alcohol is tested through saliva specimen of the person for whom the test is conducted. This test is expensive than urine test and most commonly used test when compared to other tests. Samples are collected at the time of test and chance of tampering the sample is less. There are no nationally accepted cutoff levels for this test. Therefore, the results of saliva alcohol test are not accepted as evidence for any legal consideration.

To prevent road accidents, legislators are using these tests and making high efforts in controlling the accidents which are caused due to driving under the influence of alcohol. Testing for alcohol has become common for evaluation of employee. For avoiding accidents and evaluating employees, alcohol testing has become more important and is implemented more commonly than earlier.

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