Respondent characteristics associated with adherence in a general population ecological momentary assessment study

• Published in: International journal of methods in psychiatric research Vol. 32; no. 4; pp. e1972 - n/a
• Main Authors: Murray, Aja, Yang, Yi, Zhu, Xinxin, Speyer, Lydia, Brown, Ruth, Eisner, Manuel, Ribeaud, Denis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.12.2023; Wiley
• Subjects: adherence; Alcohol Drinking; Antisocial personality disorder; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Beer; Bias; Data collection; Design; Drug use; Ecological Momentary Assessment; experience sampling; Humans; Longitudinal studies; Medical research; Mental disorders; Mental health; missingness; non‐response; Participation; Population studies; Psychiatric research; Research Design; Self-Injurious Behavior; Smartphones; Social behavior; Sociodemographics; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young adults; Switzerland; experience sampling; non-response; missingness; adherence; ecological momentary assessment
• ISSN: 1049-8931; 1557-0657; 1557-0657
• DOI: 10.1002/mpr.1972

Objectives Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has seen an explosion in popularity in recent years; however, an improved understanding of how to minimise (selective) non‐adherence is needed. Methods We examined a range of respondent characteristics predictors of adherence (defined as the number of EMA surveys completed) in the D2M EMA study. Participants were a sample of n = 255 individuals drawn from the longitudinal z‐proso cohort who completed up to 4 EMA surveys per day for a period of 2 weeks. Results In unadjusted analyses, lower moral shame, lower self‐control, lower levels of self‐injury, and higher levels of aggression, tobacco use, psychopathy, and delinquency were associated with lower adherence. In fully adjusted analyses with predictors selected using lasso, only alcohol use was related to adherence: beer and alcopops to higher adherence and spirits to lower adherence. Conclusions These findings provide potential insights into some of the psychological mechanisms that may underlie adherence in EMA. They also point to respondent characteristics for which additional or tailored efforts may be needed to promote adherence.