Systematic Review on HRV Reference Values
Maximillian Brozat; Irina Böckelmann; Stefan Sammito
Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease · 2025
What the research tells us
The review found no generally accepted HRV reference range that can be applied across populations, metrics and recording protocols. Differences in duration, equipment, age and handling of confounders prevented a defensible pooled normal range.
Scope & interpretation
The search ended on 2 November 2022 despite publication in 2025. The abstract and several totals say 58 studies, whereas methods/results say 57; this count discrepancy remains unresolved. English/German restriction, inconsistent definitions of health and measurement differences constrain coverage. Study reference distributions are not diagnostic thresholds.
Study at a glance
- POPULATION & SAMPLE
- Reference-value studies from 1989–2022; individual samples ranged from 20 to 84,772, with ages from one day to 99 years.
- EXPOSURE / INTERVENTION / SUBJECT
- Four-database review of studies reporting reference values in healthy participants; ECG durations ranged from 10 seconds to 24 hours and intermediate windows.
- OUTCOMES
- Time-domain, frequency-domain and nonlinear HRV metrics; a descriptive review rather than a pooled diagnostic accuracy estimate.
- TIME FRAME
- Search on 2 November 2022; published 6 June 2025.
Cited on this site
Editorial & review record
Record for v1.0 · Updated
Editorial responsibility: TAP Editorial Team
Editorial note
Under the editorial responsibility of the TAP Editorial Team, this publication used AI assistance for content organization and editing.
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How responsibilities and review are recorded ↗Scope of this reading note
PMC full text: methods, results, reference-value comparison, discussion and declarations. The 57/58 count discrepancy is retained; the original studies’ full datasets were not reanalysed.
- Study funding
- Authors reported no external funding.
- Competing interests
- Authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Project support
Founded and supported by Resilio.
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