Feasibility, Reliability and Predictive Value Of In-Ambulance Heart Rate Variability Registration

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a parameter of autonomic nervous system function. A decrease of HRV has been associated with disease severity, risk of complications and prognosis in several conditions.We aim to investigate the feasibility and the reliability of in-ambulance HRV registration during emergency interventions, and to evaluate the association between prehospital HRV parameters, patient characteristics, vital parameters and short-term outcome.We conducted a prospective study using a non-invasive 2-lead ECG registration device in 55 patients transported by the paramedic intervention team of the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel. HRV assessment included time domain parameters, frequency domain parameters, nonlinear analysis, and time-frequency analysis. The correlation between HRV parameters and patient and outcome characteristics was analyzed and compared to controls. = 0.049).In-ambulance HRV registration is technically and operationally feasible and produces reliable results for parameters in the time, frequency, nonlinear and time frequency domain. Especially non-linear HRV analysis during emergency ambulance transportation may be a promising approach to predict patient outcome