Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2022 Mar;63(3):282-295. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13471. Epub 2021 Jun 29.
Adolescence is characterized by alterations in biobehavioral functioning, during which individuals are at heightened risk for onset of psychopathology, particularly internalizing disorders. Researchers have proposed using digital technologies to index daily biobehavioral functioning, yet there is a dearth of research examining how wearable metrics are associated with mental health.
We preregistered analyses using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study dataset using wearable data collection in 5,686 adolescents (123,862 person-days or 2,972,688 person-hours) to determine whether wearable indices of resting heart rate (RHR), step count, and sleep duration and variability in these measures were cross-sectionally associated with internalizing symptomatology. All models were also run controlling for age, sex, body mass index, socioeconomic status, and race. We then performed prospective analyses on a subset of this sample (n = 143) across 25 months that had Fitbit data available at baseline and follow-up in order to explore directionality of effects.
Cross-sectional analyses revealed a small, yet significant, effect size (R = .053) that higher RHR, lower step count and step count variability, and greater variability in sleep duration were associated with greater internalizing symptoms. Cross-lagged panel model analysis revealed that there were no prospective associations between wearable variables and internalizing symptoms (partial R = .026), but greater internalizing symptoms and higher RHR predicted lower step count 25 months later (partial R = .010), while higher RHR also predicted lower step count variability 25 months later (partial R = .008).
Findings indicate that wearable indices concurrently associate with internalizing symptoms during early adolescence, while a larger sample size is likely required to accurately assess prospective or directional effects between wearable indices and mental health. Future research should capitalize on the temporal resolution provided by wearable devices to determine the intensive longitudinal relations between biobehavioral risk factors and acute changes in mental health.
青春期的生物行为功能会发生变化，在此期间，个体患精神病理学的风险会增加，尤其是出现内化障碍。研究人员已经提出使用数字技术来对日常生物行为功能进行索引，但关于可穿戴指标与心理健康之间的关联，研究还很少。
我们使用可穿戴数据在 5686 名青少年（123862 人天或 2972688 人小时）中预先注册了青少年大脑认知发育研究数据集的分析，以确定静息心率（RHR）、步数和睡眠持续时间及这些指标的变异性等可穿戴指标是否与内化症状存在横断面关联。所有模型还都控制了年龄、性别、体重指数、社会经济地位和种族进行了分析。然后，我们对该样本的一个子集（n=143）进行了前瞻性分析，该子集在基线和随访时均有 Fitbit 数据，以探索效应的方向性。
横断面分析显示，静息心率较高、步数较低和步数变化较大以及睡眠持续时间变化较大与内化症状更严重之间存在较小但显著的效应量（R=0.053）。交叉滞后面板模型分析显示，可穿戴变量与内化症状之间没有前瞻性关联（部分 R=0.026），但内化症状更严重和 RHR 更高预测 25 个月后步数更低（部分 R=0.010），而 RHR 更高也预测 25 个月后步数变化更大（部分 R=0.008）。
研究结果表明，可穿戴指标与青春期早期的内化症状同时相关，而要准确评估可穿戴指标与心理健康之间的前瞻性或方向性影响，可能需要更大的样本量。未来的研究应该利用可穿戴设备提供的时间分辨率，确定生物行为风险因素与心理健康急性变化之间的密集纵向关系。
