Validity of a portable spirometer in the communities of China

BACKGROUND: The lack of simple and affordable spirometry has led to the missed and delayed diagnoses of chronic respiratory diseases in communities. The PUS201P is a portable spirometry developed to solve this problem. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to verify the consistency of the PUS201P spirometer with conventional Jaeger spirometer. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we randomly recruited 202 subjects aged > 40 years. Testing with the portable spirometry and conventional spirometry were performed on all participants. We compared forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1)), forced vital capacity (FVC), FEV(1)/FVC measured by the PUS201P device with the conventional spirometer. Pearson correlation coefficient and Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) were assessed to confirm the consistency of the measures from two instruments. Bland–Altman graph was created to assess the agreement of the measures from two devices. RESULTS: 202 participants were included in this study. The ICC on FEV(1), FVC, FEV(1)/FVC measured by the portable spirometer and the conventional spirometer were 0.95 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.94–0.96), 0.92 (95% CI: 0.90–0.94], 0.93 (95% CI: 0.91–0.95), respectively. The Bland–Altman plots showed that the mean difference between the measures from two spirometers are always located in the 95% limits of agreement. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support that the measures from the portable spirometer and the conventional spirometer have a good agreement and reproducibility. And the portable spirometer is a reliable tool to screen and diagnose chronic airway diseases in the primary care settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12890-022-01872-9.