Determining the Agreement Between an Automated Respiratory Rate Counter and a Reference Standard for Detecting Symptoms of Pneumonia in Children: Protocol for a Cross-Sectional Study in Ethiopia.

Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARIs), primarily pneumonia, are the leading infectious cause of under-5 mortality worldwide. Manually counting respiratory rate (RR) for 60 seconds using an ARI timer is commonly practiced by community health workers to detect fast breathing, an important sign of pneumonia. However, correctly counting breaths manually and classifying the RR is challenging, often leading to inappropriate treatment.