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. 2025 Aug 8:13:e19830.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.19830. eCollection 2025.

Unveiling the mental state: validating the uBioMacpa Pro stress measurement tool among Chinese college students

Mingzhu Pan  1   2 , Xinxing Li  3 , Liying Yao  2 , Solomon Gbene Zaato  4 , Yee Cheng Kueh  5 , Garry Kuan  1
Affiliations

Unveiling the mental state: validating the uBioMacpa Pro stress measurement tool among Chinese college students

Mingzhu Pan et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Mental stress is a significant contributor to various health issues, including cardiovascular disease, anxiety, and depression. Scholars have developed many tools and methods to evaluate psychological stress states. uBioMacpa Pro is one of the measuring meters that evaluates accumulated stress by measuring heart rate variability (HRV). This study uses reliability and validity tests to validate uBioMacpa Pro among Chinese college students. A total of 260 students (females = 146, males = 114) with a mean age of 21 years (SD = 1.48, 1.51) were volunteers and recruited in the reliability and validity tests, respectively. The heart rate variability parameters showed satisfactory test-retest and inter-rater reliability, with the most intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values exceeding the acceptable threshold of 0.75. Validity assessment was done by exploring concurrent validity that measured the psychological stress of college students by using uBioMacpa Pro and using the validated Chinese version of the Stress Scales for College Students (C-SSCS) as a reference. The result showed a significant correlation between the uBioMacpa Pro stress index and C-SSCS questionnaire scores (r = 0.246, p < 0.001). The overall finding of our study implies that the uBioMacpa Pro has good reliability and validity, and it can be used for monitoring and assessing Chinese college students' mental stress.

Keywords: College students; Heart rate variability; Mental stress; uBioMacpa Pro.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. The flow diagram outlining the research procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2. UBioMacpa pro measuring probe.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Smartphone-generated stress index report for participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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