Disclosed is an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) detection method using dopants. The ion mobility spectrometer comprises a sample feeding device, a drift tube and a gas passage system communicated therewith. The gas passage system comprises a pump, a filtering device, a gas inlet and a gas outlet provided on the drift tube for providing clean gas used as the drift gas and the sample carrier gas. The detection method comprises: providing a sampling substrate for sample collection; combining the dopants with the sampling substrate; collecting the sample using the sampling substrate combined with the dopants; and introducing the sampling substrate that has collected the sample into the sample feeding port of the ion mobility spectrometer for detection. With this method, it is unnecessary to provide an independent dopant gas passage, thereby simplifying the structure of the instrument and meanwhile, making it easier and more accurate to control the amount of the dopants required for detection.