Integrated Electrocardiography-Heart Rate Variability (ECG-HRV) Analysis in Neurologically Symptomatic Individuals Without Cardiac Symptoms: A Data-Driven Retrospective Observational Study of Electroc

Depression is a serious mental illness affecting a large number of people across the world. Studies have shown that nearly 282 million (5%) of adults and 64 million (5.7%) of the elderly population are affected by depression and approximately 3.8% (280 million people) of the world population is facing depression []. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an upsurge and increased the caseload of depression. As per some studies, cases of anxiety and depression were reported by 291 million (41.3%) of adult patients suffering from COVID-19 []. Treatment of depression involves psychological counselling, use of antidepressant medications, and, in severe cases, use of electroconvulsive therapy. Among these, antidepressant medications are the most effective and the first choice of therapy in treating depression []. Commonly prescribed classes of antidepressant drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), followed by selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), along with some atypical antidepressants like bupropion and mirtazapine. There are also some older and now less commonly prescribed classes of drugs like tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) []. Reports of hyponatremia associated with the use of antidepressant medications have been surfacing since the last decade or so [-]. But comparatively fewer studies have been conducted to establish a correlation between antidepressant medication and hyponatremia.