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Conducting Respiratory Oscillometry in an Outpatient Setting
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Repeatability, Reproducibility, and Concurrent Validity of a Stethoscope and Health App System for the Quantification
Ricardo Becerro de Bengoa Vallejo1, Marta Elena Losa Iglesias2, Oscar David Robles Sanchez3
1Departamento de Enfermería, Facultad de Enfermería, Fisioterapia y Podología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Background:
Apps for smartphones that can measure the breathing rate easily can be downloaded.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to demonstrate agreement in measuring breath rates between the stethoscope and Breath Counter health app.
Methods:
We performed a repeatability study with 56 healthy volunteers. The patient's demographic data and breathing rates per minute were collected. Breathing rates were measured via two methods: (1) using a stethoscope placed in the upper area of the right lung and (2) a Breath Counter app developed by Vadion on a Samsung Fold smartphone.
Results:
This study demonstrated high repeatability and validity with respect to the breathing rate parameter of healthy adults using the aforementioned 2 systems. Intrasession repeatability measure using the intraclass correlation coefficient was >0.962, indicating excellent repeatability. Moreover, the intraclass correlation coefficient between methods was 0.793, indicating good repeatability, and coefficients of variation of method errors values were 1.83% with very low values in terms of other repeatability parameters. We found significant correlation coefficients and no systematic differences between the app and stethoscope methods.
Conclusions:
The app method may be attractive to individuals who require repeatability in a recreational setting.
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