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World J Psychiatr. Sep 22, 2016; 6(3): 303-310
Published online Sep 22, 2016. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v6.i3.303
Ecological Momentary Assessment with smartphones for measuring mental health problems in adolescents
Ernesto Magallón-Neri, Teresa Kirchner-Nebot, Maria Forns-Santacana, Caterina Calderón, Irina Planellas
Ernesto Magallón-Neri, Teresa Kirchner-Nebot, Maria Forns-Santacana, Institute of Research in Brain, Cognition and Behavior (IR3c), 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Ernesto Magallón-Neri, Teresa Kirchner-Nebot, Maria Forns-Santacana, Caterina Calderón, Research Group on Measure Invariance and Analysis of Change (GEIMAC), 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Ernesto Magallón-Neri, Teresa Kirchner-Nebot, Maria Forns-Santacana, Caterina Calderón, Irina Planellas, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment Section, University of Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Author contributions: Magallón-Neri E designed and coordinated the research, acquired the data, wrote the paper, analyzed and interpreted the data; Kirchner-Nebot T and Forns-Santacana M designed and coordinated the research, revised made critical revisions of the paper and acquired the data; Calderón C and Planellas I acquired the data.
Supported by Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, No. PSI 2013-46392-P; and the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants from the Government of Catalonia, No. 2014SGR1139.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the University of Barcelona Institutional Review Board Number: 00003099.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Bioethics Committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ernesto Magallón-Neri, PhD, Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment Section, University of Barcelona, Pg. Vall d Hebron, 171, 08036 Barcelona, Spain. emagallonneri@ub.edu
Telephone: +34-93-3125096 Fax: +34-93-4021362
Received: June 18, 2016
Peer-review started: June 29, 2016
First decision: August 5, 2016
Revised: August 11, 2016
Accepted: August 27, 2016
Article in press: August 29, 2016
Published online: September 22, 2016
Processing time: 82 Days and 20.3 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To analyze the viability of Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) for measuring the mental states associated with psychopathological problems in adolescents.

METHODS

In a sample of 110 adolescents, a sociodemographic data survey and an EMA Smartphone application over a one-week period (five times each day), was developed to explore symptom profiles, everyday problems, coping strategies, and the contexts in which the events take place.

RESULTS

The positive response was 68.6%. Over 2250 prompts about mental states were recorded. In 53% of situations the smartphone was answered at home, 25.5% of cases they were with their parents or with peers (20.3%). Associations were found with attention, affective and anxiety problems (P < 0.001) in the participants who took longer to respond to the EMA app. Anxious and depressive states were highly interrelated (rho = 0.51, P < 0.001), as well as oppositional defiant problems and conduct problems (rho = 0.56, P < 0.001). Only in 6.2% of the situations the subjects perceived they had problems, mainly associated with inter-relational aspects with family, peers, boyfriends or girlfriends (31.2%). We also found moderate-high reliability on scales of satisfaction level on the context, on positive emotionality, and on the discomfort index associated with mental health problems.

CONCLUSION

EMA methodology using smartphones is a useful tool for understanding adolescents’ daily dynamics. It achieved moderate-high reliability and accurately identified psychopathological manifestations experienced by community adolescents in their natural context.

Keywords: Ecological Momentary Assessment; Mental health problems; Smartphone; Coping; Adolescents

Core tip: Adolescence is a stage of life characterized by a great many changes. If they are not coped with effectively, these changes may trigger mental health problems. Among the range of methodologies used to assess the impact of daily problems, Ecological Momentary Assessment allows the recording of mental microprocesses and fluctuations as they happen. We found anxious and depressive states were highly interrelated, as well as oppositional defiant problems and conduct problems in daily life. This methodology based on mobile technology using smartphones is a useful tool with high viability for measuring psychopathological mental states in adolescents in their natural context.