heart rate variability as a measure to identify autonomic dysfunction and mental health disorders in public safety personnel
abstract
unresolved trauma from critical incident exposures may lead to autonomic
dysfunction and mental health disorders in public safety personnel (psp). heart rate variability
(hrv) is a highly sensitive measure that can be used alongside psychological assessments to
identify early warning signs of autonomic dysfunction that may be an early detector of worsened
mental health.
objectives. the two primary objectives of this project were to: 1) critically appraise the
literature involving hrv assessment in identifying mental health disorders in psp based on its
scientific rigor, and 2) develop a knowledge translation (kt) tool in the form of an infographic
to guide hrv measurment and interpretation as a surrogate indice of autonomic function.
method. to address objective 1, methods developed by arksey and o’malley (2005) were
adapted to conduct a scoping review on studies that used hrv to assess mental health and/or
autonomic function in psp. a quality appraisal (macdermid et al., 2014) and a physiological
hrv checklist (catai et al., 2020) were combined into a hybrid critical appraisal tool to assess
scientific merit of all studies. to address objective 2, high quality findings of the scoping review
and the physiological hrv checklist (catai et al., 2020) were used to develop an hrv
measurement guideline infographic. [...]