The Role of Voice Acoustics in Depression Assessment: Findings From Bibliometric Analysis, Literature Review, and...

Depression is a prevalent mental health disorder that significantly impairs psychosocial functioning and quality of life. Recent advances in health sciences and digital technologies have highlighted the potential of voice acoustic parameters as objective indicators of health status, including depression.

A bibliometric analysis, systematic literature review, and meta-analysis were conducted to consolidate and critically evaluate the current evidence regarding the relationship between voice acoustic parameters and depression. The search was performed in January 2024 across seven databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. Studies were included if they involved participants with clinically significant depression, identified either through formal diagnostic criteria or through validated depression rating scales with established clinical thresholds and explicitly reported voice acoustic parameters. A total of 31 potential publications were identified and analyzed, and after full-text reading, 17 publications were included. Only six out of the 17 included studies reported sufficient numerical fundamental frequency (fo) data for meta-analysis; other parameters could not be synthesized quantitatively due to a lack of extractable values.

The bibliometric analysis suggests an evolution from studies identifying "valid" assessment tools towards the modeling of potential discriminatory factors. The mean difference (MD) suggests a decreased fo of 1.82 Hz among participants identified with depression compared to participants identified as the control group. However, the difference between the groups was not statistically significant (Z test = 0.58; p-value 0.56).

Voice acoustic parameters seem to have the potential to be noninvasive, cost-effective biomarkers for measuring and monitoring depression symptomatology. Although there was a trend of decreased fo of 1.82 Hz among participants identified with depression compared to participants identified as the control group, the meta-analysis suggests a nonsignificant difference in average values.