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Introduction: The use of clinical laboratory test results in diagnostic decision making is an integral part of clinical medicine. The laboratory requisition form is the major communication link between clinician and laboratory personnel. Insufficient, incorrect or illegible information on the requisition forms can directly affect processing and analysis of the specimens. It may lead to incorrect diagnostic and therapeutic decisions, misinterpretation of result, and impair on meaningful comments from the clinical laboratory. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the preanalytical error with inadequacies in the completion of laboratory requisition forms.

Materials and Methods: Original laboratory requisition forms received at the department of clinical biochemistry during a four month period were manually scrutinized for the presence of prefixed criteria. These data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software and represented as percentage.

Results: During the study period, 5600 requisition forms were examined. The most inadequately fi lled parameter was regarding the specimen information, treatment information, clinical information, which was missing in almost entire forms. The relevant clinical note was stated in 74.6% of the forms. Patient’s information was relatively well fi lled.

Conclusion: This study recognized the inadequacies in laboratory requisition form during the preanalytical phase of the laboratory testing process. Thus, highlights the needs to enforce and implement policies that would possibly enhance compliance with the requirements of laboratory requisition form completion.