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Finger pulse monitoring is a reliable and valid tool for measuring heart rate during exercise among adolescents in lab and school settings
Date
2026-01-29
Abstract
Background A finger pulse monitor (FPM) offers multiple advantages for monitoring heart rate during exercise in comparison to chest worn monitors, including: enhanced testing efficiency; less invasive, particularly for vulnerable populations (e.g. children); and, reduced cost. The purpose of this study was to establish the test-retest reliability of an FPM device for monitoring heart rate during a 3-minute step test (3MST30) to estimate cardiorespiratory fitness in a lab and school setting, and to compare indices of reliability with a chest worn heart rate monitor. Methods Participants (N = 29; male = 16, female = 13; age: 15.8 ± 0.7) completed the 3MST30 on two occasions, in a lab setting (T1) and in a school setting (T2), one week apart. Participants wore a Braun® FPM and a Polar® H7 chest strap heart rate monitor. Heart rate in beats per minute (bpm) was recorded on both devices at 1-minute, 2-minutes, 3-minutes, and one minute following test completion. Equivalence testing was used to analyse the data for differences between the two devices by using the TOSTER R package. Results Absolute mean differences between devices and settings were clinically insignificant, with the smallest variance at the 1-minute post recording (FPM p = .012; chest strap = 0.041). There were no statistically significant differences in heart rate measurement between settings. Conclusions This study demonstrates that finger pulse monitoring is a reliable and valid tool for measuring heart rate during sub-maximal exercise in lab and school settings.
Supervisor
Description
Publisher
Springer Nature
Citation
BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation 18(42)
Files
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OKeeffe_2026_finger.pdf
Adobe PDF, 1.29 MB
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Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
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License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International