Validation study of the use of the HRVCAM software for the evaluation of heart rate and heart rate variability at rest

Patrícia Cândida de Matos Lima Martins; Talles Marcelo Gonçalves de Andrade Barbosa; Lucas Monteiro Lima; Israel Machado Brito Souza; Gabrielly Craveiro Ramos; Pedro Henrique de Brito Souza; Adson Ferreira da Rocha; Weimar Kunz Sebba Barroso; Priscila Valverde de Oliveira Vitorino

doi:10.1093/ehjdh/ztab099

Validation study of the use of the HRVCAM software for the evaluation of heart rate and heart rate variability at rest

Eur Heart J Digit Health. 2021 Nov 29;3(1):98-104. doi: 10.1093/ehjdh/ztab099. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Authors

Patrícia Cândida de Matos Lima Martins¹, Talles Marcelo Gonçalves de Andrade Barbosa¹, Lucas Monteiro Lima¹, Israel Machado Brito Souza¹, Gabrielly Craveiro Ramos¹, Pedro Henrique de Brito Souza², Adson Ferreira da Rocha², Weimar Kunz Sebba Barroso³, Priscila Valverde de Oliveira Vitorino^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Pontifical Catholic University of Goias (PUC Goiás), Av. Universitária, n. 1069-Setor Universitário, Caixa Postal 86, 74605-010 Goiânia-GO, Brazil.
² University of Brasília (UnB), 70910-900 Brasili, Brazil.
³ Hypertension League, Federal University of Goias (UFG), Setor Leste Universitário, 74605-020 Goiânia, Brazil.

Abstract

Aims: The existing instruments for assessing heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) require contact area. This is difficult to obtain from specific groups of patients and from those moving. The aim of this study was to validate the use of the HRVCam software for measuring HR and HRV in healthy adults.

Methods and results: The HR and HRV variables were evaluated in terms of time and frequency using a webcam and Polar^® S810i. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the normality of the data, and the Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) was used to identify the possible correlation between the two instruments. The size of the effect was calculated based on a generalized linear model, and the Bland-Altman plots were used to analyse the agreement between the methods. The level of significance for all analyses was set at P < 0.05. We evaluated 102 participants, of whom 52% were men; 83.3% were aged between 18 and 29.9 years; and 84.3% were single.

Conclusion: There was a good agreement and moderate to strong correlations among all analysed variables. The biases were low, except for the low frequency/high frequency measures. Moreover, the difference between the samples was small to moderate. The results of this study corroborate the use of HRVCam for measuring HR and HRV.

Keywords: Heart rate; Photoplethysmography; Validation study.