A comparison of objective and subjective measures of physical activity, sedentary and sleep behaviors between persons with and without depressive symptoms.

Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is characterized by negative recall biases, which may impact how individuals with depressive symptoms report physical activity (PA), sedentary, and sleep behaviors. Additionally, there are discrepancies between subjective and objective behaviors in MDD. Thus, the current study investigated whether individuals with depressive symptoms differ in their subjective and objective PA, sedentary, and sleep behaviors, and whether the magnitude of these discrepancies differ from those in individuals without depressive symptoms.

Methods: Participants from the 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (N = 8367; N = 762) with one-week of passively-collected, wrist worn actigraphy data and self-reported questionnaires assessing PA, sedentary, and sleep behaviors were analyzed.

Results: Three negative binomial models investigated the effects of group, measurement type, and their interaction on PA, sedentary, and sleep behaviors. Individuals with depressive symptoms exhibited lower PA and sleep than individuals without depressive symptoms but did not differ in sedentary behaviors. Measurement type differed across all models: self-reported PA and sleep were lower, and self-reported sedentary behaviors were greater, than objective measurements. The interaction was significant only for PA; whereas objective PA was greater than subjective measurements for all individuals, the difference was far greater for individuals with depressive symptoms.

Limitations: The absence of a clinically depressed sample and current manner of assessing subjective and objective measures may limit our generalizability and conclusions.

Conclusion: Our study highlights discrepancies in objective and subjective reports across domains and emphasizes the importance of incorporating objective measurements to improve psychopathology assessment.