Psychometric properties of the Zephyr bioharness device: a systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundTechnological development and improvements in Wearable Physiological Monitoring devices, have facilitated the wireless and continuous field-based monitoring/capturing of physiologic measures in healthy, clinical or athletic populations. These devices have many applications for prevention and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal disorders, assuming reliable and valid data is collected. The purpose of this study was to appraise the quality and synthesize findings from published studies on psychometric properties of heart rate measurements taken with the Zephyr Bioharness device.MethodsWe searched the Embase, Medline, PsycInfo, PuMed and Google Scholar databases to identify articles. Articles were appraised for quality using a structured clinical measurement specific appraisal tool. Two raters evaluated the quality and conducted data extraction. We extracted data on the reliability (intra-class correlation coefficients and standard error of measurement) and validity measures (Pearson/Spearman’s correlation coefficients) along with mean differences. Agreement parameters were summarised by the average biases and 95% limits of agreement.ResultsA total of ten studies were included: quality ratings ranged from 54 to 92%. The intra-class correlation coefficients reported ranged from 0.85–0.98. The construct validity coefficients compared against gold standard calibrations or other commercially used devices, ranged from 0.74–0.99 and 0.67–0.98 respectively. Zephyr Bioharness agreement error ranged from − 4.81 (under-estimation) to 3.00 (over-estimation) beats per minute, with varying 95% limits of agreement, when compared with gold standard measures.ConclusionGood to excellent quality evidence from ten studies suggested that the Zephyr Bioharness device can provide reliable and valid measurements of heart rate across multiple contexts, and that it displayed good agreements vs. gold standard comparators – supporting criterion validity.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13102-018-0094-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Usability of Wearable Devices With a Novel Cardiac Force Index for Estimating the Dynamic Cardiac Function: Observational Study

“…It can measure and estimate basic physiological parameters, including heart rate, respiratory rate, acceleration, maximum oxygen consumption, and temperature; thus, it can monitor the body’s activity state during running. Furthermore, the device has great reliability and validity and is better than regular heart rate belts that measure only the heart rate [ 25 ]. Excellent quality evidence from a recent systematic review study confirmed that the BioHarness 3.0 device could provide reliable and valid measurements of the heart rate across multiple contexts.…”

Review on Smart Electro-Clothing Systems (SeCSs)

“…Its sensor module known as BioModule™ can be worn via a compression shirt and sport bra or a strap. Nazari et al [83], through a systematic review of literature, identified ten research studies focusing on the reliability and validity of heart rate measurements taken by the Zephyr device and concluded that the device displayed good agreement with the gold standard measurements.…”

The Effect of Sports Rules Amendments on Exercise Intensity during Taekwondo-Specific Workouts

“…Other research teams [ 29 , 30 , 31 ] evaluated the reliability and validity of the Bioharness bio-monitor and recommended it as a high-precision tool in comparison with gold standards ( r = 0.91, p < 0.01, CV (coefficient of variation) < 7.6% for heart rate and r = 0.94, p < 0.01 for acceleration).…”

“…This study aimed to compare the physiological and kinematic exercise response to taekwondo-specific circuit training sessions in highly trained taekwondo athletes before and after rule changes. We analyzed a large number of training sessions throughout a longer period (2 years) as opposed to previous studies [ 17 , 18 , 20 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. We hypothesized that the rule amendments and related modifications in kicking modality would increase the exercise intensity of taekwondo-specific workouts and reduce the gap between real combat situation and workout in terms of physiological and kinematic response.…”