Assessing the use of minimally invasive self-sampling at home for long-term monitoring of the microbiota within UK families
Nikolaou et al.
The finding, in our words
The study found that minimally invasive self-sampling at home was acceptable to most families, with saliva and hand sampling well tolerated across all ages and nasal sampling mainly accepted by adults and children over five. This supports the use of decentralised, patient-centric microsampling for long-term community surveillance of microbiota.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
In a cross-sectional study of 90 adolescents, 94 per cent provided at least one salivary sample and 89 per cent supplied a stool sample, with high adherence to study instructions, indicating that self-collection of these biospecimens is feasible and acceptable in this age group.
Leung et al., Research in nursing & health (paywalled) · source ↗
Participants preferred the Omnigene and Zymo oral swabs for comfort and ease of use, whilst the Omnigene device yielded the highest median bacterial DNA concentration compared to the other devices. The results indicate that the choice of self-collection device impacts both patient acceptability and DNA yield for oral microbiome analysis.
Rooney et al., Journal of microbiological methods (paywalled) · source ↗
In a one-week virtual home clinic with 134 participants, 86 per cent returned saliva and 84 per cent returned stool, and most components were feasible and acceptable despite device and logistical challenges. This supports decentralised, patient-centric self-collection of non-blood biospecimens for research.
In a 14-day study of youth with neurodevelopmental conditions and chronic pain, multimodal in-home monitoring achieved good accelerometer wear compliance (77% wore devices for at least 7 days) and moderate survey engagement, but adherence to salivary cortisol sampling was low at 28% after excluding protocol violations and dry swabs. Families reported high overall satisfaction and willingness to participate again, highlighting that remote sampling protocols in pediatric populations require iterative tailoring to improve biospecimen collection adherence.
Boerner et al., Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP · source ↗
The CandyCollect lollipop-inspired device achieved 100% concordance with commercial oral swabs and spit tubes for detecting salivary bacteria in 14 healthy adults who self-collected samples at home. Among 26 participants surveyed, the device was ranked highest for user preference, and it showed a one-year shelf life at room temperature, indicating potential for decentralised diagnostics and telemedicine applications.
Tu et al., Analytical chemistry (paywalled) · source ↗