BACKGROUND
Clinical scales have been mainly used as tools for screening mental illnesses. However, there are limitations that the clinical scale is less accurate than the diagnosis of a psychiatrist and depends on the subjectivity of the respondent. To complement limitations from clinical scale, Heart Rate Variability (HRV) can be used, as it is reported from studies that HRV and mental illness are correlated. However, studies related to screening mental illness based on biomarkers are insufficient, and there are no studies which compared biomarker-based screening with the diagnosis of a psychiatrist.
OBJECTIVE
Comparing sensitivity and specificity of three different types of screening methods such as clinical scale only, HRV only, and combining clinical scale and HRV with psychiatrist’s diagnosis.
METHODS
The study was conducted for depressive disorder, anxiety, and insomnia, and recruited 85 patients’ group and 30 normal control group. First, psychiatrist diagnose whether the subject is mentally ill or not. Second, subjects are introduced to use mobile application which provides both HRV measurement and clinical scale.
RESULTS
The use of clinical scale and HRV together brings mental illness screening closer to the diagnosis of a psychiatrist. Specifically, including HRV in the mental illness screening increased the sensitivity of depressive disorder and anxiety by 5% respectively and increased by 4% for insomnia.
CONCLUSIONS
Sum of normalized values of HRV factors such as SDNN, LF, HF, and LF/HF Ratio and proper thresholds that classifies mental illness can increase sensitivity of clinical scale based mental illness screening. However, finding optimal threshold is required.