Heart Rate Variability in Depressive Disorder Patients during Hospitalization Treatment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between depression disorder and autonomic nervous system functions in hospitalization patients by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV). The participants were five depressive disorder patients that received hospitalization for one month and the symptoms were improved. Rating severity scale - clinical global impression and measurement photoplethysmography (PPG) were obtained at the first several days of hospitalization as pretest and after one month of hospitalization as posttest. Beat-to-beat P-P interval of heart pulse signals were analyzed using power spectral analysis to quantify the frequency domain properties of HRV. Our preliminary results show that high frequency power, low frequency power and total power of HRV were significantly higher in posttest and heart rate was significantly lower in posttest compared with pretest. These findings suggest that the improvement of psychosomatic symptoms will increase autonomic nervous system activity and reduce heart rate. The spectral analysis of HRV should be used to assess symptom improvement in mental disorder patients.