Ecological Momentary Assessment of Adolescent Problems, Coping Efficacy, and Mood States Using a Mobile Phone App: An Exploratory Study

BACKGROUND: Mobile technologies have the potential to be used as innovative tools for conducting research on the mental health and well-being of young people. In particular, they have utility for carrying out ecological momentary assessment (EMA) research by capturing data from participants in real time as they go about their daily lives. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore the utility of a mobile phone app as a means of collecting EMA data pertaining to mood, problems, and coping efficacy in a school-based sample of Irish young people. METHODS: The study included a total of 208 participants who were aged 15-18 years, 64% female (113/208), recruited from second-level schools in Ireland, and who downloaded the CopeSmart mobile phone app as part of a randomized controlled trial. On the app, participants initially responded to 5 single-item measures of key protective factors in youth mental health (formal help-seeking, informal help-seeking, sleep, exercise, and sense of belonging). They were then encouraged to use the app daily to input data relating to mood states (happiness, sadness, anger, stress, and worry), daily problems, and coping self-efficacy. The app automatically collected data pertaining to user engagement over the course of the 28-day intervention period. Students also completed pen and paper questionnaires containing standardized measures of emotional distress (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; DASS-21), well-being (World Health Organization Well-Being Index; WHO-5), and coping (Coping Strategies Inventory; CSI). RESULTS: On average the participants completed 18% (5/28) of daily ratings, and engagement levels did not differ across gender, age, school, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or nationality. On a scale of 1 to 10, happiness was consistently the highest rated mood state (overall mean 6.56), and anger was consistently the lowest (overall mean 2.11). Pearson correlations revealed that average daily ratings of emotional states were associated with standardized measures of emotional distress (r(happiness)=–.45, r(sadness)=.51, r(anger)=.32, r(stress)=.41, r(worry)=.48) and well-being (r(happiness)=.39, r(sadness) =–.43, r(anger)=–.27, r(stress)=–.35, r(worry)=–.33)(.) Inferential statistics indicated that single-item indicators of key protective factors were related to emotional distress, well-being, and average daily mood states, as measured by EMA ratings. Hierarchical regressions revealed that greater daily problems were associated with more negative daily mood ratings (all at the P<.001 level); however, when coping efficacy was taken into account, the relationship between problems and happiness, sadness, and anger became negligible. CONCLUSIONS: While engagement with the app was low, overall the EMA data collected in this exploratory study appeared valid and provided useful insights into the relationships between daily problems, coping efficacy, and mood states. Future research should explore ways to increase engagement with EMA mobile phone apps in adolescent populations to maximize the amount of data captured by these tools. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02265978; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02265978 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6mMeYqseA).