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Reliability and accuracy of heart rate variability metrics versus ECG segment duration

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Abstract

Despite the exponential growth in heart rate variability (HRV) research, the reproducibility and reliability of HRV metrics continues to be debated. We estimated the reliability of 11 metrics calculated from 5 min records. We also compared the accuracy of the HRV metrics calculated from ECG records spanning 10 s to 10 min as compared with the metrics calculated from 5 min records. The mean heart rate was more reproducible and could be more accurately estimated from very short segments (<1 min) than any of the other HRV metrics. HRV metrics that effectively highpass filter the R–R interval series were more reliable than the other metrics and could be more accurately estimated from very short segments. This indicates that most of the HRV is caused by drift and nonstationary effects. Metrics that are sensitive to low frequency components of HRV have poor repeatability and cannot be estimated accurately from short segments (<10 min).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Phyllis Stein and Rochelle Goldsmith for contributing their data to PhysioBank, and to the anonymous referees for their thorough revision of the original manuscript and helpful suggestions.

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  1. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR, 97207-0751, USA

    James McNames

  2. Electronics Engineering Technology, Oregon Institute of Technology, 18640 NW Walker Rd, Beaverton, OR, 97006, USA

    Mateo Aboy

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  1. James McNames
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Correspondence to Mateo Aboy.

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McNames, J., Aboy, M. Reliability and accuracy of heart rate variability metrics versus ECG segment duration. Med Bio Eng Comput 44, 747–756 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-006-0097-2

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