Assessment of Objective Symptoms of Depression in Occupational Health Examination.

The aim of the study was to assess early symptoms of depression in regular occupational health examination using the objective measures based on electroencephalographic (EEG) signal analysis. The study was performed on 125 volunteer participants. The resting-state EEG signal was recorded for 7 minutes. The spectral asymmetry index (SASI) and Higuchi fractal dimension (HFD) were calculated in EEG channel Pz. Parallel, the participants were subjected to two psychological tests, observer-rated HAM-D and self-rated EST-Q-D. The SASI revealed depressive symptoms for 64.8%, HFD for 55.2%, HAM-D for 44.8%, and EST-Q-D for 28.8% of participants. Combination of two different measures indicated depression symptoms up to 78.4% of participants. The results of this study confirm the feasibility of indication of early symptoms of depression applying EEG-based objective measures.