Activity monitoring in patients with depression: A systematic review
Open accessAbstract
Background Altered physical activity is an important feature of depression. It is manifested in psychomotor retardation, agitation and withdrawal from engagement in normal activities. Modern devices for activity monitoring (actigraphs) make it possible to monitor physical activity unobtrusively but the validity of actigraphy as an indicator of mood state is uncertain. We carried out a systematic review of digital actigraphy in patients with depression to investigate the associations between measured physical activity and depression.Methods Systematic review and meta-analysis. Studies were identified from Medline, EMBASE and Psycinfo databases and included if they were either case control or longitudinal studies of actigraphy in adults aged between 18 and 65 diagnosed with a depressive disorder. Outcomes were daytime and night-time activity and actigraphic measures of sleep.Results We identified 19 eligible papers from 16 studies (412 patients). Case control studies showed less daytime activity in patients with depression (standardised mean difference -0.76, 95% confidence intervals -1.05 to -0.47). Longitudinal studies showed moderate increase in daytime activity (0.53, 0.20 to 0.87) and a reduction in night-time activity (-0.36, -0.65 to -0.06) over the course of treatment.Limitations All study participants were unblinded. Only seven papers included patients treated in the community.Conclusions Actigraphy is a potentially valuable source of additional information about patients with depression. However, there are no clear guidelines for use of actigraphy in studies of patients with depression. Further studies should investigate patients treated in the community. Additional work to develop algorithms for differentiating behaviour patterns is also needed.
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Patients with depression are significantly less physically active than healthy controls.
“Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of actigraphy studies demonstrated that patients with depression were significantly less physically active than healthy controls [15,16].”
From Digital Biomarkers for Depression Screening With Wearable Devices: Cross-sectional Study With Machine Learning Modeling (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
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References 47 · Cited by 249
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Glod, C. A., Teicher, M. H., Magnus, E., Harper, D., Benson, G., & Krueger, K. Circadian rest- activity disturbances in seasonal affectivedisorder. SOC Light Ther Biol Rhythms Abstr 1992; 4:14.
- Authors
- Burton, C., McKinstry, B., Szentagotai Tătar, A., Serrano-Blanco, A., Pagliari, C., & Wolters, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Burton, Christopher
- Venue
- Journal of Affective Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-02
- Volume
- 145
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 21-28
- ISSN
- 0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1992716541
- Cited by
- 249
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 0.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Aberdeen University Research Archive (Aberdeen University) (submittedVersion)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Keywords
- depression, actigraphy, physical activity, diurnal activity, nocturnal activity, sleep, mood states, psychomotor retardation, non-intrusive monitoring, community-based treatment
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Depression, Depressive Disorder, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Monitoring, Physiologic, Psychomotor Agitation, Sleep, Actigraphy
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