title: [Respiratory muscle strength test: is it realistic in young children?].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the success rate of the manovacuometry test in children between 4 and 12 years of age.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study involving children and adolescents from 4 to 12 years of age, enrolled in three basic education schools. All subjects had the anthropometric and respiratory muscle strength (maximum inspiratory pressure and maximum expiratory pressure) data measured. Students whose parents did not authorize participation or who did not want to undergo the test were excluded. The test was considered successful when the subject reached acceptability (no air leaks) and reproducibility (variation <10% between the two major maneuvers) criteria established by guidelines. Failure was defined when subjects did not meet the above criteria. Data were expressed as mean and standard deviation and in absolute and relative frequency. The comparison between proportions was performed using the chi-square test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We included 196 children and adolescents, mean age of 8.4±2.5 years, 53.1% female. The success rate of the manovacuometry test in children and adolescents evaluated was 92.3%. When comparing the differences between the success rates of preschool children with those children and adolescents of school age, there was a significantly lower success rate in the pre-school (85.1%) group compared to the school group (94.6%) (p=0.032). However, no significant differences (p=0.575) were found when gender comparisons were performed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The manovacuometry test showed a high success rate in both preschool and school population assessed. Furthermore, the rate of success appears to be related to aging.
authors.affiliation: Centro Infant, Instituto de Pesquisas Biomédicas, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: João Paulo
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Heinzmann-Filho
authors.affiliation: Centro Infant, Instituto de Pesquisas Biomédicas, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. Electronic address: mdonadio@pucrs.br.
authors.forename: Márcio Vinícius Fagundes
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Donadio
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D053580:Muscle Strength; D012132:Respiratory Muscles / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Estudos de viabilidade; Feasibility studies; Força muscular; Muscle strength; Músculos respiratórios; Respiratory function tests; Respiratory muscles; Testes de função pulmonar