Date of Graduation

12-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Kinesiology (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Health, Human Performance and Recreation

Advisor/Mentor

Stavros Kavouras

Committee Member

Matthew Ganio

Second Committee Member

Brendon McDermott

Keywords

Social sciences, Health and environmental sciences, Hydration, Urine color

Abstract

While water intake is so important, there are few practical hydration assessment techniques for the general population to use on a daily basis. The present study examined the accuracy of self-assessed urine color (Ucol) as a potential hydration assessment tool. Male college aged subjects provided a urine sample into a custom built urinal (n=76; 1.79±0.76 m, 83.9±16.0 kg). The urinal contained a picture of the 1-8 color scale and a light and dark urine color scale. Subjects were asked to give their urine color estimation as a whole number integer and to estimate if their urine was light or dark. For each sample, osmolality (Uosmo), specific gravity (Usg) and urine color (Ucol) were measured in the laboratory. Participant’s Ucol was determined from a researcher by comparing the color of the urine sample to the 1-8 color urine color scale and the light and dark scale. Based on the ROC analysis the overall accuracy of the self-assessment of Ucol was calculated to be 65% (area under the curve). The analysis further resulted in 35% specificity and 91% sensitivity. On the light and dark scale only 8 participants choose dark while the other 68 chose light. Additionally, of the 68 people that chose light 18 were categorized as hypohydrated. Of the 8 participant’s that chose dark, 4 were categorized to be euhydrated. Bland-Altman analyses were used to calculate the agreement between self- and laboratory-assessed Ucol ratings (r=0.31; P

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