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

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.

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.

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.