Assessing dehydration status in dengue patients using urine colourimetry and mobile phone technology.

Abstract

BackgroundDengue is a systemic and dynamic disease with symptoms ranging from undifferentiated fever to dengue shock syndrome. Assessment of patients' severity of dehydration is integral to appropriate care and management. Urine colour has been shown to have a high correlation with overall assessment of hydration status. This study tests the feasibility of measuring dehydration severity in dengue fever patients by comparing urine colour captured by mobile phone cameras to established laboratory parameters.Methodology/principal findingsPhotos of urine samples were taken in a customized photo booth, then processed using Adobe Photoshop to index urine colour into the red, green, and blue (RGB) colour space and assigned a unique RGB value. The RGB values were then correlated with patients' clinical and laboratory hydration indices using Pearson's correlation and multiple linear regression. There were strong correlations between urine osmolality and the RGB of urine colour, with r = -0.701 (red), r = -0.741 (green), and r = -0.761 (blue) (all p-value Conclusions/significanceUrine colourimetry using mobile phones was highly correlated with the hydration status of dengue patients, making it a potentially useful hydration status tool.