Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 11, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 19, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Reliability and Concurrent Validity of a Stethoscope and Health-App System for the Quantification of Breath Rate in Healthy Adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
Applications (Apps) for smartphones that can measure the breath rate easily can be downloaded.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to assess the reliability of this type of App for a smartphone with an Android-based operating system compared to the conventional stethoscope to guide effective use of such a system by healthcare professionals and the general population.
Methods:
(1) One using a stethoscope placed in the upper area of the right lung and (2) a breath counter by Vadion©: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softrove.app.bc on a Samsung® Fold smartphone.
Results:
This study demonstrated high reliability and validity with respect to the bpm parameter of healthy adults using two systems. Intra-session reliability measure using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was > 0.962, indicating excellent reliability. Moreover, the ICC between methods was 0.793 indicating good reliability, and coefficients of variation of method errors (CVME) values were 1.83% with very low values in terms of other reliability parameters. We found significant correlation coefficients and no systematic differences between the app and the stethoscope methods.
Conclusions:
App-based systems can serve as valid instruments for the assessment of breath rate in healthy adults.
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