title: Concordance among Measurements Obtained by Three Pulse Oximeters Currently Used by Health Professionals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oxygen saturation is considered as the 5(th) vital sign. Presently, there exist fixed and wireless pulse oximeters, being the latter most widely used in the last years. Some of them have no possibility of calibration. This situation leads the health staff to adopt therapeutic attitudes which can be wrong. Therefore, it is extremely important to know if these wireless oximeters show a right concordance as regards measurements, since it is of great interest in daily clinical practice.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate concordance among measurements obtained by three different pulse oximeters currently used by health professionals.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study related to the concordance of the results obtained in measurements collected by three different pulse oximeters (one monitor and two wireless oximeters) which are available and in use in this hospital unit. The sample size calculation was performed for a concordance above 0.81 and an estimation error which did not exceed 0.20. The intraclass correlation index (ICI) was used to establish the concordance whereas the Landis-Koch criteria were used to interpret the results. Systematic errors were analyzed using the Bland-Altman plot.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall concordance among the three pulse oximeters analyzed resulted in 0.88, a value considered as "good" according to the Landis-Koch criteria.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results obtained show that in daily clinical practice both wireless pulse oximeters analyzed can be used with a certain reliability, taking into account the limitations of this research.
authors.affiliation: Research Master in Science of Nursing, Ortopeadic Unid, Hospital Universitario Insular De Gran Canaria , Canary Islands, Spain .
authors.forename: CandelariaDe La
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Merced DíAz-GonzáLez
authors.affiliation: Professor, Departament of Nursing, Universidad De La Laguna , Canary Islands, Spain .
authors.forename: Milagros
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De La Rosa Hormiga
authors.affiliation: Professor, Departament of Nursing, Universidad De Las Palmas De Gran Canaria , Canary Islands, Spain .
authors.forename: Josefa
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: MaríA Ramal LóPez
authors.affiliation: Grade in Nursing, Ortopeadic Unid, Hospital Universitario Insular De Gran Canaria , Canary Islands, Spain Canary Islands, Spain .
authors.forename: Yasmina
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: DéNiz Rivero
authors.affiliation: Professor of Nursing, Departament of Philology, Universidad De Las Palmas De Gran Canaria , Canary Islands, Spain .
authors.forename: MaríA
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sandra Marrero Morales
keywords: Gases; Monitoring; Oximetry; Pulse oximeter