Effects of COVID-19 lockdown on heart rate variability
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Abstract
Strict lockdown rules were imposed to the French population from 17 March to 11 May 2020, which may result in limited possibilities of physical activity, modified psychological and health states. This report is focused on HRV parameters kinetics before, during and after this lockdown period.
Methods
95 participants were included in this study (27 women, 68 men, 37 ± 11 years, 176 ± 8 cm, 71 ± 12 kg), who underwent regular orthostatic tests (a 5-minute supine followed by a 5-minute standing recording of heart rate (HR)) on a regular basis before (BSL), during (CFN) and after (RCV) the lockdown. HR, power in low- and high-frequency bands (LF, HF, respectively) and root mean square of the successive differences (RMSSD) were computed for each orthostatic test, and for each position. Subjective well-being was assessed on a 0–10 visual analogic scale (VAS). The participants were split in two groups, those who reported an improved well-being (WB+, increase >2 in VAS score) and those who did not (WB-) during CFN.
Results
Out of the 95 participants, 19 were classified WB+ and 76 WB-. There was an increase in HR and a decrease in RMSSD when measured supine in CFN and RCV, compared to BSL in WB-, whilst opposite results were found in WB+ (i.e. decrease in HR and increase in RMSSD in CFN and RCV; increase in LF and HF in RCV). When pooling data of the three phases, there were significant correlations between VAS and HR, RMSSD, HF, respectively, in the supine position; the higher the VAS score (i.e., subjective well-being), the higher the RMSSD and HF and the lower the HR. In standing position, HRV parameters were not modified during CFN but RMSSD was correlated to VAS.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that the strict COVID-19 lockdown likely had opposite effects on French population as 20% of participants improved parasympathetic activation (RMSSD, HF) and rated positively this period, whilst 80% showed altered responses and deteriorated well-being. The changes in HRV parameters during and after the lockdown period were in line with subjective well-being responses. The observed recordings may reflect a large variety of responses (anxiety, anticipatory stress, change on physical activity…) beyond the scope of the present study. However, these results confirmed the usefulness of HRV as a non-invasive means for monitoring well-being and health in this population.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165118: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IACUC: The local ethical committee approved the study (agreement 2016-00308; Commission Cantonale d’Ethique de la Recherche sur l’être humain, CCER-VD; Lausanne, Switzerland) as part of a set of studies on a broader scale. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis The statistical power of the performed tests was set at p = 0.05 for significance and p = 0.10 for tendency. Sex as a biological variable Inclusion criteria were, age between 18 and 60 years old, physically active, healthy, non-smokers, with no known diseases and no pregnancy or lactation for women, living in France. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical… SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165118: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IACUC: The local ethical committee approved the study (agreement 2016-00308; Commission Cantonale d’Ethique de la Recherche sur l’être humain, CCER-VD; Lausanne, Switzerland) as part of a set of studies on a broader scale. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis The statistical power of the performed tests was set at p = 0.05 for significance and p = 0.10 for tendency. Sex as a biological variable Inclusion criteria were, age between 18 and 60 years old, physically active, healthy, non-smokers, with no known diseases and no pregnancy or lactation for women, living in France. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analyses were performed using MATLAB®. MATLAB®suggested: (MATLAB, RRID:SCR_001622)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: The lockdown was applied suddenly, and it was therefore impossible to recruit participants a priori during the baseline period. By chance we had enough participants with sufficient HRV tests to conduct this study. Overall, it is a unique opportunity to describe the HRV behavior in 95 healthy people, extracted from a database of 7098 orthostatic tests. The main limitation is that we did not have any data on physical activity of these participants. We can only speculate that the HRV changes during CFN reflect at least partly the decrease or increase in physical activity.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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