Multi-panel Vs. Single-panel Drug Test Kits For Employee Drug Testing

By Author: Nate Rodney
Total Articles: 499
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Employers are responsible for their employees' safety at workplace. One way to make workplace safe is by making it free from drug abusing employees.

Effective workplace drug testing results in better compliance of law, less workers compensation claims and less legal hassles to business. It also builds better employee-employer trust and relationship.

Employers can conduct different kinds of drug testing methods – pre-employment drug testing, scheduled or random drug testing. Drug test kits designed for workplace drug testing help employers successfully conduct drug tests and enable them to keep a check on drug abusing employees.

Both single and multi-panel drug test kits are generally used at workplaces. In this article, we made a relative comparison between both the test kits to make it easy for you to choose the best one based on your requirement.

Single-panel drug test kits:

Single-panel test kits/strips can detect a single drug using a test sample like urine or saliva.
They are easy to use, economical and provide quick results.

Multi-panel drug test kits:

Multi-panel ...
... drug test kits serve the same purpose but you can use multi-panel drug test kits to test for two or more drugs at a time.
Based on the number of drugs they detect, they are named as 3-panel, 5-panel, and 12-panel drug test kits.
Drugs such as methamphetamine, barbiturates, buprenorphine, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, opiate, oxycodone, and phencyclidine can be detected using a single sample with these test kits.

Multi-panel vs. single-panel drug test kits:

Though both single and multi-panel drug test kits can be used for workplace drug testing, multi-panel drug test kits are considered effective because of the following advantages:

Convenience: Multi-panel kits are available in both strip and cup forms. Multi-panel test cups are convenient to use because they avoid the inconvenience of handling test sample. The sample can be directly collected in a cup which has a closed lid. The test card is attached to the cup itself. You can simply peel off the label and read the results.

With respect to single-panel test strips, you should have a separate sample collection container for each employee to be tested, you need to collect the sample, dip the strip and hold it till the results are displayed which is little inconvenient compared to multi-panel drug testing.

Cost & efficiency: Multi-panel drug test kits are efficient over single-panel kits because with a single-panel test kit you can test for 10-12 drugs. So, drug abusers are less likely to escape from the test as most of the test kits are designed to detect popularly abused drugs. In case of single panel you can detect only one drug at a time thus chances of drug abusers being undetected will be more.

Coming to the cost of these kits, though multi-panel kits cost more compared to their counterparts, the advantage of testing more than one drug makes them economical.

Advanced options: Advanced options like the split keys, adulteration and temperature checks are available only in multi-panel cups. Thus they have a unique advantage over single-panel kits.

Split key cup:

Multi-panel split key cups make sure that the test sample does not come into contact with test part until the key is inserted. This enables the test administrator to start the test at his convenience and allows him to read the results accurately.

Adulteration check:

These test kits can detect adulteration of test samples. Adulterants like specific gravity, PH and oxidant in urine sample are detected by the kits that are integrated with adulteration check. This feature makes sure that the test sample is not adulterated.

Temperature check:

Multi-panel drug test kits integrated with temperature check enable test administrators to measure the temperature of urine sample. The temperature of the sample is expected to be between 95 to 100° F within four minutes after collection. It should not be less than 90.5° F. Sample not meeting the criteria is suspected of adulteration.

Multi-panel drug test kits are thus advantageous over their single-panel test kits. They help employers save time and cost of administration of the test.

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