Stress Detection: Leveraging IoMT Data and Machine Learning for Enhanced Well-being

Abstract

we focus on the detection of acute stress, characterized by short-term physiological changes such as changes in heart rate variability (HRV), breathing patterns, and other bodily functions. Often measurable through wearable or contactless sensors. Accurate detection of acute stress is crucial in high-pressure environments, such as clinical settings, to reduce cognitive overload, prevent burnout, and minimize errors. Current research on stress detection faces multiple challenges. First, most proposed methods are not designed to identify stress in unseen subjects, limiting their generalizability and practical applicability. Second, due to the sensitive nature of stress-related physiological data and the risk of data leakage, insufficient attention has been paid to ensuring data privacy while preserving utility. Third, many existing studies rely on synthetically induced stress in controlled environments, overlooking real-world scenarios where stress can have severe consequences. Finally, nearly all research in this domain employs invasive IoMT sensors or wearable devices, which may not be practical or scalable for real-world applications. This thesis presents five key contributions in the field of stress detection using Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) sensors and machine learning. First, it introduces a deep learning model based on self-attention (Transformer), trained and evaluated using the WESAD dataset, a widely used benchmark collected from 15 participants under controlled stress tasks. The model achieved 96% accuracy in detecting stress and was validated using leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) cross-validation to demonstrate generalizability to unseen individuals. Second, to ensure data privacy, a differential privacy framework was integrated into the model. This approach adds noise during training to prevent sensitive data leakage and achieved 93% accuracy, confirming it is both private and effective. Third, the thesis introduces a new dataset called PARFAIT, collected from 30 healthcare workers during real hospital duties (ICU, ER, OR) using non-invasive HRV sensors and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to label stress levels. This dataset supports real-world analysis of stress among physicians. Fourth, a cost-sensitive model is developed using XGBoost and the PARFAIT dataset, assigning higher penalties to stress misclassifications that could lead to medical errors. This model achieved 98% accuracy and reduced false negatives, making it suitable for clinical settings. Finally, a contactless radar-based system is presented to detect stress using ultrawideband (UWB) radar, capturing HRV and breathing data. A deep learning model achieved 92.35% accuracy, offering a non-wearable, scalable alternative. Although the radar-based model achieved a slightly lower accuracy (92.35%) compared to the wearable-based model (96%), it provides several important advantages. It works with out any physical contact, helps maintain user privacy, and can be more practical to deploy in clinical settings where wearable sensors may not be suitable. The small drop in accuracy is mainly due to the limitations of radar in measuring HRV precisely. However, by combining radar-based HRV with breathing features, the overall performance remains competitive. 3