Self-collected foam nasal swabs (NS) obtained after instillation of saline spray were compared with nasal washes from immunocompetent subjects during 146 upper respiratory infections (URIs); the sensitivities for reverse transcription (RT)-PCR respiratory virus detection were 95% and 88%, respectively (P = 0.06). The sensitivities from NS collected with and without saline spray during 142 URIs from immunocompetent subjects were 96% and 86% (P = 0.004), respectively, and those from 140 URI samples from hematopoietic cell transplantation recipients were 88% and 85% (P = 0.56), respectively.