Daily fluctuation of emotions and memories thereof: Design and methods of an experience sampling study of major depression, social phobia, and controls

Abstract

Symptom fluctuations and the dynamic contexts provoking these are poorly understood. This deficit is compounded by people's limited ability to accurately report about such dimensions in retrospect. Utilizing the advantages of experience sampling methodology (ESM), this study rigorously describes and tests proximal environmental, neurobiological and psychological factors associated with symptoms and mood states. Participants were assigned to three diagnostic groups: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; n = 118), Social Phobia (SP; n = 47), or a Control Group without SP or MDD (CG; n = 119). Laboratory assessments included cognitive abilities, memory, constructs, and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). ESM lasted seven days, with six assessments per day covering symptoms, affect, daily events, social interactions, post-event processing, well-being, etc. Morning cortisol and actigraphy were also assessed during ESM. Thereafter, participants provided subjective retrospective recall estimates of the emotions they reported during ESM. The multi-level data of >10,000 observations will allow for thorough examination of fluctuations of psychopathology and well-being in two highly prevalent disorders. Using two clinical groups and a non-affected control group, the clinical specificity versus generalizability of processes can be directly tested, thus providing stimulating information about the overlap and differences between anxiety and affective disorders. This research informs about the development, fluctuation, and maintaining factors of emotions and symptoms and examines the accuracy with which participants recall these dimensions.

Current status of acceptance and commitment therapy for chronic pain: a narrative review

“…A potentially impactful development in research on psychological flexibility could be the use of frequent sampling of psychological flexibility processes, through methods such as ecological momentary assessment. 107 , 108 The application of these developments to ACT research in chronic pain will require further validation of brief assessment tools of psychological flexibility and primary pain outcomes (eg, pain interference and daily functioning) for repeated use. Greater understanding of the processes underlying ACT treatment effects and the time course of these will enable greater precision of targeting these processes.…”

Experienced Burden of and Adherence to Smartphone-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment in Persons with Affective Disorders

“…Advocates of EMA argue that assessing affective states more frequently is a more appropriate way to measure affect dynamics, as retrospective distortions are minimized [6,[10][11][12][13]. EMA questionnaires provide us with the essential information that needs to be measured in order to generate insights in the temporal variability of anxiety and mood symptoms, the importance of real-life context, phenomenology, and the interrelatedness of symptoms [14][15][16].…”

General or specific? The memory–experience gap for individuals diagnosed with a major depressive disorder or a social phobia diagnosis, and individuals without such diagnoses

“…The data is part of a larger longitudinal study and was approved by the Ethikkommission Nordwest-und Zentralschweiz . Detailed descriptions of the study design and procedure are presented elsewhere (Gloster et al, 2017). At baseline, participants gave informed consent, answered demographic questions, filled out questionnaires on symptoms, emotion regulation, and well-being, and completed a diagnostic interview.…”

“…Further demographic information such as employment status, years of education and number of diagnosis can be viewed in table 1. The sample size is adequately powered for the hypothesis (Gloster et al, 2017) and was specifically designed to test the generalizability.…”