Use Of Ecological Momentary Assessment Research Articles

Studying adolescent smoking in real time: Use of ecological momentary assessment

Adolescent cigarette smoking remains a significant public health problem and a major cause of cardiovascular disease later in life. Understanding the processes underlying adolescent smoking initiation, progression, and cessation may allow for improved interventions in this population for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Theoretical models of smoking initiation and relapse suggest that dynamic processes, such as changes in affect state or outcome expectancies, should proximally cause changes in smoking behavior. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods provide an opportunity to examine these types of dynamic processes. EMA involves measuring a smoker’s experiences and behaviors as they are occurring in real time in the natural environment. The results of recent studies that have used EMA to examine adolescent smoking are reviewed in this article. The findings provide important information about how dynamic processes involving affect states and external contexts may influence smoking among adolescents. EMA studies may substantially impact theoretical models of adolescent smoking and future treatment interventions.

Conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues in the study of relapse

This article examines conceptual, methodological, and analytic issues in research on relapse to alcohol and other drug use. The review notes the continued move in relapse research from a primary reliance on retrospective assessment of factors surrounding the onset of relapse episodes to an increased focus on the use of new technologies to obtain “near real time” data on proximal factors in relapses. Recent advances in neurobiology have yielded important gains in our understanding of vulnerability to relapse in alcohol and other drug abusers. New statistical techniques are also available to analyze data on relapse. From a theoretical standpoint, there has been an increasing appreciation for the complicated and dynamic interplay of distal and proximal factors in the relapse process. At this point, the strongest and most detailed data on factors in the onset and course of relapse have been generated by studies of smoking relapses that have made use of Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) technology. However, there is still limited “near real” time data on proximal factors in alcohol and other drug relapses, and no such data on factors that influence the course of these relapses, once they have begun. Nevertheless, important methodological advances have been and continue to be made in the study of relapse, and our knowledge about the nature and process of relapse has increased considerably over the past 10 years.

The Use of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Test Appraisal Theories of Emotion.

Although appraisal theories have received strong empirical support, there are methodological concerns about the research, including biased recall, heuristic responding, ethical issues, and weak and unrealistic induction of emotions in laboratories. To provide a more ecologically valid test of appraisal theories, the authors used ecological momentary assessment, in which the emotions and appraisals of Singaporean police officers were measured online over the course of an ordinary workday. The research focused on happiness. Support was obtained for predictions, demonstrating the generalizability of appraisal theories to a nonlaboratory setting and circumventing the shortcomings of previously used methodologies. Also, evidence was obtained that happiness was reported primarily in association with a specific combination of 3 relevant appraisals: high pleasantness, high perceived control, and low moral violation.

Measuring Mood and Complex Behavior in Natural Environments: Use of Ecological Momentary Assessment in Pediatric Affective Disorders

This article describes the theoretical background and methodology of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and reports results from a pilot study using EMA techniques in 16 children and adolescents with affective disorders and 5 subjects who were healthy and at low risk to develop future affective disorders. Multiple daily assessments of the subjects' mood, thoughts, and behaviors were performed in their natural environments using brief interviews on cellular phone calls by the study staff and by wrist actigraphy. The pilot results demonstrated that the EMA methodology is feasible in this population, as 17 of 21 subjects were able to complete the entire 8-week protocol. The potential usefulness of the EMA methodology is illustrated by specific case reports. Potential applications of the EMA methodology to the study of neurobehavioral systems and the pathophysiology of pediatric affective disorders are discussed.