Actigraphy for evaluation of mood disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis

•Depressive patients less active with longer wake after sleep onset than healthy controls.•Total sleep time, sleep latency, and wake after sleep onset longer in euthymic/remitted patients than healthy controls.•Sleep latency, wake after sleep onset, and sleep efficiency significantly improved in pre- and post-treatment comparisons. Actigraphy has enabled consecutive observation of individual health conditions such as sleep or daily activity. This study aimed to examine the usefulness of actigraphy in evaluating depressive and/or bipolar disorder symptoms. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted. We selected studies that used actigraphy to compare either patients vs. healthy controls, or pre- vs. post-treatment data from the same patient group. Common actigraphy measurements, namely daily activity and sleep-related data, were extracted and synthesized. Thirty-eight studies (n = 3,758) were included in the analysis. Compared with healthy controls, depressive patients were less active (standardized mean difference; SMD=1.27, 95%CI=[0.97, 1.57], P