Abstract:
Background: Clinical laboratory reference intervals are an important tool for identifying
abnormal laboratory results and for ultimately guiding patient management decisions. The
setting of hematological parameters reference intervals for local population is very crucial to
improve quality of health care.
Objective: To determine hematological parameters reference interval for apparently healthy
individuals in southwest Ethiopians.
Methodology: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 13, 2017 to
May 30, 2017. A total of 998 apparently healthy individual were included in the study. Complete
blood count was done by Sysmex XS-500i hematology analyzer (Sysmex Corporation Kobe,
Japan). The data were first entered in to Epidata, cleaned and exported to SPSS-version 20
statistical software for analysis. The non-parametric independent Kruskal-Wallis test and
Wilcoxon rank-sum test (Mann-Whitney U test) were used to compare the distribution of the
parameters among age groups and between genders.
Result: Most of the hematological parameters show significant age differences between all age
group reference intervals for both male and females. Significant differences by gender were not
detected for many of the indices in children age group. In adult and geriatric age groups males
had significantly higher values of red blood cell, hemoglobin and hematocrit compared to
females (p<0.001). And also statistically significance sex differences were observed among adult
age group by having adult female participants higher platelet and lower eosinophil count than
adult male participants (p<0.05).
Conclusion: This study provided local reference interval which can be used to guide patient
management and interpretation of laboratory findings and potentially improve the quality of
health care in southwest Ethiopia
