Correlation between heart rate variability and symptom severity in patients with somatic symptom disorder / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the correlation between heart rate variability (HRV) and symptom severity in patients with somatic symptom disorder (SSD).Methods:Thirty-three patients with somatic symptom disorder (SSD group) who were outpatients or inpatients in Sichuan Provincial People′s Hospital from May 2020 to December 2020 and thirty-three gender-and age-matched healthy controls (HC group) were selected. The patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9), generalized anxiety disorder scale (GAD-7), patient health questionnaire PHQ-15 were applied to assess the severity of depression, anxiety and somatic symptoms in both groups. The somatic system disorder-B criteria scale (SSD-12) and the Whiteley-8 Scale (WI-8) were selected to assess the severity of symptom in SSD. All subjects underwent HRV measurement within one week of enrollment. The differences of HRV between the two groups were compared and the correlation between HRV and symptom severity were analyzed. Independent samples t-test was used for comparison between groups, and Pearson correlation analysis was used for correlation analysis between HRV index and symptom severity. Results:The levels of GAD-7, PHQ-9 and PHQ-15 in SSD group(5.0(2.0, 10.5), 8.0(3.5, 13.0), 11.0(8.0, 15.0)) were significantly higher than those in HC group (1.0(0, 2.0), 0(0, 2.0), 3(0, 6.0)), and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The SDNN ((25.41±11.24)ms), lnLF ((1.91±0.50)ms 2) and lnTP ((2.65±0.43)ms 2) in the SSD group were lower than those in the HC group ((32.87±12.01)ms, (2.27±0.43)ms 2, (2.93±0.32)ms 2), and the differences were statistically significant( t=-2.605, -3.160, -2.883, all P<0.05). RMSSD of SSD patients was negatively correlated with GAD-7, PHQ-9, and behavioral and cognitive factor scores of SSD-12 ( r=-0.360--0.404, P<0.05), lnHF was negatively correlated with GAD-7, PHQ-9 and behavioral factor scores of SSD-12 scores ( r=-0.491--0.402, all P<0.05), and lnLF/HF was positively correlated with PHQ-9 ( r=0.413, P<0.05) and lnTP was positively correlated with GAD-7 ( r=0.383, P<0.05). Conclusion:HRV is reduced in SSD patients and correlated with symptom severity, indicating the clinical potential of HRV index as a biological marker of SSD.