Validity and reliability of acoustic analysis of respiratory sounds in infants

• DOI: 10.1136/adc.2003.046458
• Publication Date: 2004-10-21T20:48:26Z
• Authors: H E Elphick
• Keywords: Crackles; Stethoscope; Wheeze; Kappa; Cohen's kappa; Respiratory sounds; Auscultation; Gold standard (test)

To investigate the validity and reliability of computerised acoustic analysis in detection abnormal respiratory noises infants.Blinded, prospective comparison with stethoscope examination. Validity were assessed by calculating degree observer agreement using kappa statistic 95% confidence intervals (CI).102 infants under 18 months recruited. Convergent for between examination was poor wheeze (kappa = 0.07 (95% CI, -0.13 to 0.26)) rattles 0.11 (-0.05 0.27)) fair crackles 0.36 (0.18 0.54)). Both distinguished well sounds (discriminant validity). Agreement observers presence both analysis. moderate but techniques. Within-observer all good.The is unreliable assessing infants. This has important implications its use as a diagnostic tool lung disorders infants, confirms that it cannot be used gold standard. Because unreliability stethoscope, could not demonstrated, although discriminate showed good within-observer reliability. For analysis, targeted training development pattern recognition systems may improve so can clinical practice.