Table 5.

Day to day variation (repeatability) and person to person variation (reproducibility) between the technicians and the microscopic analysts. Criteria set and the positive control values obtained.

Reproducibility and repeatability
	Criteria set for positive control/CV%/p–value	Obtained positive control value
		Technician 1 –microscopic analyst 1 mean (n = 24)	Technician 1 – microscopic analyst 2 mean (n = 24)	Technician 2 –microscopic analyst 1 mean (n = 24)	Technician 2 –microscopic analyst 2 mean (n = 24)
Day 1 (n = 48)	≥5.75	5.79	5.833	5.75	5.75
Day 2 (n = 48)	≥5.75	5.833	5.833	6.583	6.083
Day 3 (n = 48)	≥5.75	5.875	5.75	6.625	6.5
Mean between days	≥5.75	5.833	5.805	6.319	6.111
Day to day variation among technicians (CV%)	≤15%	0.59%	0.67%	6.38%	5.02%
Day to day variation among technicians (one-way ANOVA)	p < 0.05	ns, p = 0.906		ns, p = 0.064
Day to day variation between analysts (CV%)	≤15%	0.34%		%2.37
Person to person variation between technicians		5.63%		0.64%
Person to person variation between technicians (statistical significance, unpaired t-test)	p < 0.05	p = 0.007
Person to person variation between analysts (statistical significance, paired t-test)	p < 0.05	ns, p = 0.2084
Total mean of positive control	≥5.75	6.017
Total variation of positive control (CV%)	≤15%	1.39%

CV, coefficient of variation, ns, non-significant.