1. Ecological Momentary Assessment of Mental Health Problems Among University Students: Data Quality Evaluation Study
- Author
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Ana Portillo-Van Diest, Philippe Mortier, Laura Ballester, Franco Amigo, Paula Carrasco, Raquel Falcó, Margalida Gili, Glenn Kiekens, Francisco H Machancoses, Jose A Piqueras, Marisa Rebagliato, Miquel Roca, Tíscar Rodríguez-Jiménez, Jordi Alonso, and Gemma Vilagut
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Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics ,R858-859.7 ,Public aspects of medicine ,RA1-1270 - Abstract
BackgroundThe use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) designs has been on the rise in mental health epidemiology. However, there is a lack of knowledge of the determinants of participation in and compliance with EMA studies, reliability of measures, and underreporting of methodological details and data quality indicators. ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate the quality of EMA data in a large sample of university students by estimating participation rate and mean compliance, identifying predictors of individual-level participation and compliance, evaluating between- and within-person reliability of measures of negative and positive affect, and identifying potential careless responding. MethodsA total of 1259 university students were invited to participate in a 15-day EMA study on mental health problems. Logistic and Poisson regressions were used to investigate the associations between sociodemographic factors, lifetime adverse experiences, stressful events in the previous 12 months, and mental disorder screens and EMA participation and compliance. Multilevel reliability and intraclass correlation coefficients were obtained for positive and negative affect measures. Careless responders were identified based on low compliance or individual reliability coefficients. ResultsOf those invited, 62.1% (782/1259) participated in the EMA study, with a mean compliance of 76.9% (SD 27.7%). Participation was higher among female individuals (odds ratio [OR] 1.41, 95% CI 1.06-1.87) and lower among those aged ≥30 years (OR 0.20, 95% CI 0.08-0.43 vs those aged 18-21 years) and those who had experienced the death of a friend or family member in the previous 12 months (OR 0.73, 95% CI 0.57-0.94) or had a suicide attempt in the previous 12 months (OR 0.26, 95% CI 0.10-0.64). Compliance was particularly low among those exposed to sexual abuse before the age of 18 years (exponential of β=0.87) or to sexual assault or rape in the previous year (exponential of β=0.80) and among those with 12-month positive alcohol use disorder screens (exponential of β=0.89). Between-person reliability of negative and positive affect was strong (RkRn>0.97), whereas within-person reliability was fair to moderate (Rcn>0.43). Of all answered assessments, 0.86% (291/33,626) were flagged as careless responses because the response time per item was
- Published
- 2024
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