Results
Participants
Both parts of the experiment were completed by 205 speaking participants. In the first step, the results from the questionnaires were analyzed for their quality. The average time for completing the questionnaires was 25 min. The total duration of the signals, excluding the survey part, was about 4 minutes. Therefore, the responses of the participants who completed the entire experiment in less than 5 minutes were rejected as unreliable. Therefore,185 questionnaires were approved for further analysis. Among those participants there were: 16 pulmonologists, 22 pediatricians, 29 doctors with other specializations, 50 doctors during the internship and 68 medical students.
Part I: Survey
Among respondents, the majority (67%) auscultates patients at least once a week, 14% do it at least once a month. The remaining group auscultates their patients less than once a month (19%). Only 4.9% of surveyed physicians use an electronic stethoscope in their daily practice. Fig. 1 shows how the physicians rated their skills in the auscultation of children and adults.