An improved biometric stress monitoring solution for working employees using heart rate variability data and Capsule Network model

PLoS One. 2024 Dec 17;19(12):e0310776. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310776. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Biometric stress monitoring has become a critical area of research in understanding and managing health problems resulting from stress. One of the fields that emerged in this area is biometric stress monitoring, which provides continuous or real-time information about different anxiety levels among people by analyzing physiological signals and behavioral data. In this paper, we propose a new approach based on the CapsNets model for continuously monitoring psychophysiological stress. In the new model, streams of biometric data, including physiological signals and behavioral patterns, are taken up for analysis. In testing using the Swell multiclass dataset, it performed with an accuracy of 92.76%. Further testing of the WESAD dataset reveals an even better accuracy at 96.76%. The accuracy obtained for binary classification of stress and no stress class is applied to the Swell dataset, where this model obtained an outstanding accuracy of 98.52% in this study and on WESAD, 99.82%. Comparative analysis with other state-of-the-art models underlines the superior performance; it achieves better results than all of its competitors. The developed model is then rigorously subjected to 5-fold cross-validation, which proved very significant and proved that the proposed model could be effective and efficient in biometric stress monitoring.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Biometry* / methods
  • Heart Rate* / physiology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Monitoring, Physiologic / methods
  • Stress, Psychological / physiopathology

Grants and funding

This research work was funded by Institutional Fund Projects under grant no. (IFPIP: 1446-415-1443). The authors gratefully acknowledge technical and financial support provided by the Ministry of Education and King Abdulaziz University, DSR, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This study was also supported by Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University Researchers (Supporting Project number PNURSP2024R440), Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through large group Research Project under grant number RGP 2/218/45. The authors would be happy to thank the Deanships of Scientific Research at Shaqra University for supporting this work.