Differences in mobility patterns according to machine learning models in patients with bipolar disorder and patients with unipolar disorder

BACKGROUND: It is essential to differentiate bipolar disorder (BD) from unipolar disorder (UD) as the course of illness and treatment guidelines differ between the two disorders. Measurements of activity and mobility could assist in this discrimination.

AIMS: 1) To investigate differences in smartphone-based location data between BD and UD, and 2) to investigate the sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of combined location data in classifying BD and UD.

METHODS: Patients with BD and UD completed smartphone-based self-assessments of mood for six months, along with same-time passively collected smartphone data on location reflecting mobility patterns, routine and location entropy (chaos). A total of 65 patients with BD and 75 patients with UD were included.

RESULTS: A total of 2594 (patients with BD) and 2088 (patients with UD) observations of smartphone-based location data were available. During a depressive state, compared with patients with UD, patients with BD had statistically significantly lower mobility (e.g., total duration of moves per day (eB 0.74, 95% CI 0.57; 0.97, p = 0.027)). In classification models during a depressive state, patients with BD versus patients with UD, there was a sensitivity of 0.70 (SD 0.07), a specificity of 0.77 (SD 0.07), and an AUC of 0.79 (SD 0.03).

LIMITATIONS: The relative low symptom severity in the present study may have contributed to the magnitude of the AUC.

CONCLUSION: Mobility patterns derived from mobile location data is a promising digital diagnostic marker in discriminating between patients with BD and UD.