Phone sensors to detect depression risk

Northwestern‘s Sohrob Saeb believes that phones could be more reliable for diagnosing depression than traditional methods.

In his recent study, data from smartphone sensors that detect location, movement, phone usage and other activities were used to assess depression risk.

GPS or phone usage data were analyzed among 28 participants for two weeks.

The “Purple Robot” app identified 87% of the participants at risk of depression (according to the PHQ-9 guidelines) based on GPS data on frequency of movement between regular locations. The more users moved around, the less likely they were to fall into the at-risk category.

By identifying the most frequent phone users, Purple Robot could detect 74% of those in the at-risk group.

Data on both GPS and phone usage were not available, preventing researchers  from seeing how Purple Robot performed when both data sets were available.

PHQ-9 is a screening tool that determines an  above-average chance of having depression.  It does not diagnose depression.


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