TY - JOUR

T1 - Electronic monitoring of psychomotor activity as a supplementary objective measure of depression severity

AU - Faurholt-Jepsen, Maria

AU - Brage, Søren

AU - Vinberg, Maj

AU - Jensen, Hans Mørch

AU - Christensen, Ellen Margrethe

AU - Knorr, Ulla

AU - Kessing, Lars Vedel

PY - 2015/2

Y1 - 2015/2

N2 - BACKGROUND: Rating scales used to assess the severity of depression e.g. the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17-item (HDRS-17) partly rely on the patient's subjective experience and reporting. Such subjective measures tend to have low reliability and adding objective measures to complement the assessment of depression severity would be a major step forward.AIMS: To investigate correlations between electronic monitoring of psychomotor activity and severity of depression according to HDRS-17.METHODS: A total of 36 patients with unipolar disorder (n = 18) or bipolar disorder (n = 18) and 31 healthy control persons aged 18-60 years were included. Psychomotor activity was measured using a combined heart rate and movement sensor device (Actiheart) for 3 consecutive days, 24 h a day.RESULTS: We found that sleeping heart rate (beats/min) correlated with HDRS-17 in both patients with unipolar disorder and bipolar disorder (unadjusted model: B = 0.46, 95% CI 0.037-0.89, P = 0.034). In contrast, correlations between activity energy expenditure (kJ/kg/day), cardio-respiratory fitness (mlO2/min/kg) and HDRS-17 were non-significant.CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that measuring sleeping heart rate in non-experimental daily life could be an objective supplementary method to measure the severity of depression and perhaps indicate presence of insomnia.

AB - BACKGROUND: Rating scales used to assess the severity of depression e.g. the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17-item (HDRS-17) partly rely on the patient's subjective experience and reporting. Such subjective measures tend to have low reliability and adding objective measures to complement the assessment of depression severity would be a major step forward.AIMS: To investigate correlations between electronic monitoring of psychomotor activity and severity of depression according to HDRS-17.METHODS: A total of 36 patients with unipolar disorder (n = 18) or bipolar disorder (n = 18) and 31 healthy control persons aged 18-60 years were included. Psychomotor activity was measured using a combined heart rate and movement sensor device (Actiheart) for 3 consecutive days, 24 h a day.RESULTS: We found that sleeping heart rate (beats/min) correlated with HDRS-17 in both patients with unipolar disorder and bipolar disorder (unadjusted model: B = 0.46, 95% CI 0.037-0.89, P = 0.034). In contrast, correlations between activity energy expenditure (kJ/kg/day), cardio-respiratory fitness (mlO2/min/kg) and HDRS-17 were non-significant.CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that measuring sleeping heart rate in non-experimental daily life could be an objective supplementary method to measure the severity of depression and perhaps indicate presence of insomnia.

KW - Adolescent

KW - Adult

KW - Bipolar Disorder

KW - Case-Control Studies

KW - Depressive Disorder

KW - Female

KW - Heart Rate

KW - Humans

KW - Male

KW - Middle Aged

KW - Monitoring, Ambulatory

KW - Psychiatric Status Rating Scales

KW - Psychomotor Performance

KW - Reproducibility of Results

KW - Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.3109/08039488.2014.936501

DO - 10.3109/08039488.2014.936501

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 25131795

VL - 69

SP - 118

EP - 125

JO - Nordisk Psykiatrisk Tidsskrift

JF - Nordisk Psykiatrisk Tidsskrift

SN - 0803-9496

IS - 2

ER -