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. 2016 Aug;4(15):278.
doi: 10.21037/atm.2016.07.16.

Validation study of Polar V800 accelerometer

Adrián Hernández-Vicente  1 , Alejandro Santos-Lozano  2 , Katrien De Cocker  3 , Nuria Garatachea  4
Affiliations

Validation study of Polar V800 accelerometer

Adrián Hernández-Vicente et al. Ann Transl Med. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

Background: The correct quantification of physical activity (PA) and energy expenditure (EE) in daily life is an important target for researchers and professionals. The objective of this paper is to study the validity of the Polar V800 for the quantification of PA and the estimation of EE against the ActiGraph (ActiTrainer) in healthy young adults.

Methods: Eighteen Caucasian active people (50% women) aged between 19-23 years wore an ActiTrainer on the right hip and a Polar V800 on the preferred wrist during 7 days. Paired samples t-tests were used to analyze differences in outcomes between devices, and Pearson's correlation coefficients to examine the correlation between outcomes. The agreement was studied using the Bland-Altman method. Also, the association between the difference and the magnitude of the measurement (heteroscedasticity) was examined. Sensitivity, specificity and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC value) were calculated to evaluate the ability of the devices to accurately define a person who fulfills the recommendation of 10,000 daily steps.

Results: The devices significantly differed from each other on all outcomes (P<0.05), except for Polar V800's alerts vs. ActiTrainer's 1 hour sedentary bouts (P=0.595) and Polar V800's walking time vs. ActiTrainer's lifestyle time (P=0.484). Heteroscedasticity analyses were significant for all outcomes, except for Kcal and sitting time. The ROC-AUC value was fair (0.781±0.048) and the sensitivity and specificity was 98% and 58%, respectively.

Conclusions: The Polar V800 accelerometer has a comparable validity to the accelerometer in free-living conditions, regarding "1 hour sedentary bouts" and "V800's walking time vs. ActiTrainer's lifestyle time" in young adults.

Keywords: Accelerometry; energy expenditure (EE); physical activity (PA); validity; young adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Polar V800 and ActiTrainer outcomes recorded during all week (mean ± SD). Values are means ± standard deviation (SD). The leftmost P is for the paired-samples t-test (*, P<0.05). rp, Pearson’s correlation coefficient (**, P<0.05). TEE, total energy expenditure; RMR, resting metabolic rate for the Polar V800.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Polar V800 and ActiTrainer outcomes recorded during the week days (mean ± SD). Values are means ± standard deviation (SD). The leftmost P is for the paired-samples t-test (*, P<0.05). rp, Pearson’s correlation coefficient (**, P<0.05). TEE, total energy expenditure; RMR, resting metabolic rate for the Polar V800.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Polar V800 and ActiTrainer outcomes recorded during the weekend days (mean ± SD). Values are means ± standard deviation (SD). The leftmost P is for the paired-samples t-test (*, P<0.05). rp, Pearson’s correlation coefficient (**, P<0.05). TEE, total energy expenditure; RMR, resting metabolic rate for the Polar V800.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Bland-Altman results during all week.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Bland-Altman results during the week days.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Bland-Altman results during the weekend days.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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