Korean Journal of Health Promotion

Choi, Lee, Jeong, and Lee: Minimum Measurement Time Affecting the Reliability of the Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Original Article

Published online: December 28, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2017.17.4.269

Minimum Measurement Time Affecting the Reliability of the Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Won-Jun Choi^1,², Byung-Chae Lee³, Kee-Sam Jeong³, Yong-Jae Lee¹

¹Department of Family Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

²Department of Medicine, Graduate School, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

³Deptartment of Medical Information System, Yongin Songdam College, Yongin, Korea.

Corresponding author: Yong-Jae Lee, MD, MPH, PhD. Department of Family Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 211 Eonju-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06273, Korea.
Tel: +82-2-2019-2630, Fax: +82-2-3462-8209, ukyjhome@yuhs.ac

Received October 21, 2017 Accepted December 06, 2017

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) test is in widely used for measurement of autonomic nerve system. Although the standard measurement time for short-term HRV analysis is regarded as 5 minutes, it could be varied depending on the clinical situation. Thus, we examined that the valid minimum measurement time for HRV through comparison of HRV among 10 segments per 30 seconds from 30 seconds to 300 seconds.

Methods: The study included 1,457 adult participants who visited the health promotion center in Seoul, Korea from the March 2009 to December 2012. The variables of the time domain and frequency domain analysis of HRV among 10 segments from 30 seconds to 300 seconds were compared using one-way ANOVA test with post-hoc analysis.

Results: Compared with 5-minute (300 seconds) HRV, the components of HRV measurement were statistically equal in condition with 180 seconds for standard deviation of all normal-to-normal interval (SDNN), 270 seconds for NN50, 180 seconds for total power, 180 seconds for low frequency power in normalized units (LFn), and 180 seconds for high frequency power in normalized units (HFn), respectively.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that the minimum duration of HRV measurement might be more or than 180 seconds.

Key words: Heart rate variability; Autonomic nervous system; Measures

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Table 1

Age distribution of the study population

Values are presented as mean ± standard deviation.

Table 2

Index of heart rate variability

Table 3

Comparison of heart rate variability among 10 segments per 30 seconds from 30 seconds to 300 seconds

Abbreviations: mRR, mean R-R interval; mHR, mean heart rate; SDNN, standard deviation of all NN interval; RMSSD, root mean square differences of successive R-R intervals; NN50, number of pairs of adjacent NN intervals differing by more than 50 ms in the entire recording; pNN50, NN50 count divided by the total number of all NN interval; VLF, very low frequency; LF, low frequency; HF, high frequency; TP, total power, LFn, LF power in normalized units; HFn, HF power in normalized units.

^aP values were calculated using 1-way ANOVA test.

Table 4

Results of post-hoc analysis of ANOVA among 10 segments per 30 seconds from 30 seconds to 300 seconds

Abbreviations: mRR, mean R-R interval; mHR, mean heart rate; SDNN, standard deviation of all NN interval; RMSSD, root mean square differences of successive R-R intervals; N50, number of pairs of adjacent NN intervals differing by more than 50 ms in the entire recording; pNN50, NN50 count divided by the total number of all NN interval; VLF, very low frequency; LF, low frequency; HF, high frequency; TP, total power, LFn, LF power in normalized units; HFn, HF power in normalized units.

Values are presented as P-values by post-hoc Tukey test.

^aP value >0.05 by post-hoc Tukey test.

Table 5

Results of minimum measurement time for heart rate variability

^aP values were calculated using 1-way ANOVA test (mRR, mHR, RMSSD, pNN50, LF, LF/HF) and post-hoc Tukey test (SDNN, NN50, VLF, HF, TP, LFn, HFn).