The comfort of adolescent patients and their parents with mobile sensing and digital phenotyping

Abstract

To integrate mobile sensing and digital phenotyping into youth mental health care, the norms of comfort among adolescent patients and their parents with mobile sensing and digital phenotyping must be understood. The current study sought to elucidate the norms of comfort among adolescent patients and the parents of adolescent patients. It was hypothesized that the type of data sensor, level of detail, and participant group would affect comfort ratings and that there would be an interaction between group membership and the level of detail. Finally, comfort with the collection of speech data was explored. One hundred nine adolescent patients and 85 parents completed an online questionnaire about comfort with various mobile data sensors. Overall, the results support our hypotheses and match the results of previous research in adult patients, with adolescent patients' comfort decreasing with more detailed and personal digital data collected. These results indicate that comfort with mobile sensing and digital phenotyping in the context of mental health care depends on the individual's role, the type of data sensor, and the level of detail of the data sensor. Understanding these norms of comfort can help to improve the integration of information technology into the mental health care of youth.