Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Assess Family Functioning in Spanish-Speaking Parent and Adolescent Dyads: Daily Questionnaire Study.

BACKGROUND

Family functioning is associated with several adolescent health outcomes, and many family-based interventions (FBIs) exist to improve family functioning. However, most FBIs assess family functioning retrospectively at baseline and post intervention, thereby overlooking the daily fluctuations in family functioning throughout the intervention. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a method involving a high frequency of assessments and has been underused to assess family functioning across parent and adolescent dyads. Further, limited research exists on the use of EMA in bilingual populations.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to assess an EMA protocol's feasibility and acceptability and to analyze within-person and between-person variance in family functioning reports in a sample of primarily Spanish-speaking parent and adolescent dyads.

METHODS

Participants completed a baseline assessment (including demographics and family functioning assessment), a 7-day protocol with a once-daily family assessment questionnaire using an EMA app, and an acceptability questionnaire at the conclusion of the study.

RESULTS

We recruited 7 mothers (mean age 37.29, SD 3.82 years) and 8 adolescents (n=7, 88% females; mean age 11.86, SD 1.07 years) who identified themselves as Hispanic/Latinx. The participants showed overall satisfaction with the EMA protocol. The daily assessments were completed relatively quickly (mean 3 minutes and 16 seconds, SD 11 minutes and 5 seconds) after the prompt notification was received, and the response rate across the daily assessments was 90% (87/97). The reported family functioning was relatively high across both adolescents (mean 4.57) and parents (mean 4.59). The variance across adolescents (SD 0.459) was larger than that within their individual reports of family functioning (SD 0.122). Alternatively, the variance across parents was smaller (SD 0.132) than that reported among parents' individual reports of family functioning (SD 0.286). Our findings highlight the heterogeneity between adolescent and parent responses. Finally, the visual inspection of data underscored the individualized patterns and reported differences in the family functioning reports across parents and adolescents.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings emphasize the value of EMA in studying family (eg, adolescent-caregiver) behaviors. EMA's ability to capture immediate experiences presents a nuanced picture of daily interactions and offers suggestions for practice when using the EMA methodology in populations such as the one included in this study (ie, primarily Spanish-speaking parent-adolescent dyads).