A Comparative Analysis of Methods for Evaluation of ECG Signal Quality after Compression

The assessment of ECG signal quality after compression is an essential part of the compression process. Compression facilitates the signal archiving, speeds up signal transmission, and reduces the energy consumption. Conversely, lossy compression distorts the signals. Therefore, it is necessary to express the compression performance through both compression efficiency and signal quality. This paper provides an overview of objective algorithms for the assessment of both ECG signal quality after compression and compression efficiency. In this area, there is a lack of standardization, and there is no extensive review as such. 40 methods were tested in terms of their suitability for quality assessment. For this purpose, the whole CSE database was used. The tested signals were compressed using an algorithm based on SPIHT with varying efficiency. As a reference, compressed signals were manually assessed by two experts and classified into three quality groups. Owing to the experts’ classification, we determined corresponding ranges of selected quality evaluation methods’ values. The suitability of the methods for quality assessment was evaluated based on five criteria. For the assessment of ECG signal quality after compression, we recommend using a combination of these methods: PSim SDNN, QS, SNR1, MSE, PRDN1, MAX, STDERR, and WEDD SWT.