Smartphones can now detect depression

Researchers are investigating whether they can utilize the data from a smartphone to assess the health of its user.

One of the developers of the app, Sohrob Saeb, said the Purple Robot has accuracy of 87 percent in identifying depressed people.

The study was published this week in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. Or that’s at least the take of a research team from Northwestern University in Illinois, who seem to believe that spending an hour or more each day staring at a Smartphone may well be a sign of depression.

Growing research is showing that the more time you spend on your phone, the more likely it is that you are depressed. Also, if an individual have a less regular day-to-day schedule is linked to depression.

The illness can be hard to treat as sufferers, more often than not, isolate themselves or refuse to acknowledge their feelings.

David C. Mohr, one of the authors of the study told CBS News, “This makes sense clinically”. Saeb stated that the phone data was more reliable in detecting depression than daily questions participants answered about how sad they were feeling on a scale. Initially, the twenty female & eight male participants were requested to fill in a standardized questionnaire which helped measure depression levels.

All participants filled out a self-reported survey about depression before the start of the study.

The PHQ-9 asks about symptoms of depression, such as sadness, loss of pleasure, hopelessness, disturbances in sleep and appetite, and difficulty concentrating. The Global Positioning System sensors vigilantly tracked locations every five minutes. Researchers then analyzed data from 28 of the people’s cell phones with sufficient data for the review. The other 12 did not produce sufficient sensor data. About 14 participants showed no signs of depression, while the rest were either severely or mildly depressed.

In seems that depressed individuals tend to spend an average of 68 minutes on their mobile phones while non-depressed people only use their devices for about 17 minutes.

The average amount of time that a person spends browsing through the different smartphone applications has skyrocketed.

Location is also an important decisive factor in establishing whether a person is depressed or not.

The study showed that depressed people generally did not go to many places, perhaps reflecting a loss of motivation that is commonly seen in depression, the researchers noted.

Tracking phone data gives a surprisingly accurate diagnosis.

“While these findings must be replicated in a larger study among participants with confirmed clinical symptoms, they suggest that phone sensors offer numerous clinical opportunities, including continuous monitoring of at-risk populations with little patient burden and interventions that can provide just-in-time outreach”, the researchers concluded.