Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, United States.
Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2024 Jan 4;26:e51125. doi: 10.2196/51125.
Although ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has been applied in psychological research for decades, delivery methods have evolved with the proliferation of digital technology. Technological advances have engendered opportunities for enhanced accessibility, convenience, measurement precision, and integration with wearable sensors. Notwithstanding, researchers must navigate novel complexities in EMA research design and implementation.
In this paper, we aimed to provide guidance on platform selection for clinical scientists launching EMA studies.
Our team includes diverse specialties in child and adolescent behavioral and mental health with varying expertise on EMA platforms (eg, users and developers). We (2 research sites) evaluated EMA platforms with the goal of identifying the platform or platforms with the best fit for our research. We created a list of extant EMA platforms; conducted a web-based review; considered institutional security, privacy, and data management requirements; met with developers; and evaluated each of the candidate EMA platforms for 1 week.
We selected 2 different EMA platforms, rather than a single platform, for use at our 2 research sites. Our results underscore the importance of platform selection driven by individualized and prioritized laboratory needs; there is no single, ideal platform for EMA researchers. In addition, our project generated 11 considerations for researchers in selecting an EMA platform: (1) location; (2) developer involvement; (3) sample characteristics; (4) onboarding; (5) survey design features; (6) sampling scheme and scheduling; (7) viewing results; (8) dashboards; (9) security, privacy, and data management; (10) pricing and cost structure; and (11) future directions. Furthermore, our project yielded a suggested timeline for the EMA platform selection process.
This study will guide scientists initiating studies using EMA, an in vivo, real-time research tool with tremendous promise for facilitating advances in psychological assessment and intervention.
尽管生态瞬时评估（EMA）在心理学研究中已经应用了几十年，但随着数字技术的普及，其传递方式也在不断发展。技术进步为提高可及性、便利性、测量精度以及与可穿戴传感器的集成提供了机会。尽管如此，研究人员在 EMA 研究设计和实施中必须应对新的复杂性。
本文旨在为启动 EMA 研究的临床科学家提供平台选择指南。
我们的团队包括在儿童和青少年行为与心理健康方面具有不同专业知识的人员，包括 EMA 平台的用户和开发人员。我们（2 个研究地点）评估了 EMA 平台，旨在确定最适合我们研究的平台或平台。我们创建了一份现有的 EMA 平台列表；进行了基于网络的审查；考虑了机构安全、隐私和数据管理要求；与开发者会面；并对每个候选 EMA 平台进行了为期一周的评估。
我们为我们的 2 个研究地点选择了 2 个不同的 EMA 平台，而不是单一平台。我们的研究结果强调了根据个体化和优先考虑的实验室需求进行平台选择的重要性；对于 EMA 研究人员来说，没有一个单一的理想平台。此外，我们的项目提出了 11 个用于选择 EMA 平台的考虑因素：（1）位置；（2）开发者参与；（3）样本特征；（4）入职；（5）调查设计功能；（6）采样方案和时间表；（7）查看结果；（8）仪表板；（9）安全、隐私和数据管理；（10）定价和成本结构；以及（11）未来方向。此外，我们的项目还提出了 EMA 平台选择过程的建议时间表。
这项研究将为使用 EMA 启动研究的科学家提供指导，EMA 是一种实时、实时的研究工具，具有促进心理评估和干预进展的巨大潜力。
