The use of ecological momentary assessment for family caregivers of adults with chronic conditions: A systematic review

Abstract

Background Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) as a real-time data collection method can provide insight into the daily experiences of family caregivers. Purpose This systematic review aimed to synthesize studies involving EMA completed by family caregivers of adults with chronic conditions. Methods A systematic search was conducted within six databases for articles published from the inception of the database through September 2023. We extracted the characteristics of the included studies and data on EMA-specific methods to determine the quality of the included studies. Results A total of 12 studies involving EMA completed by family caregivers of adults with chronic conditions were identified, with almost all studies focused on caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s or dementia-related conditions. The average compliance rate across the included studies was 75%, below the recommended rate. In addition, most of the included studies did not collect the family caregivers’ daily activities and care contexts in their responses (i.e., affect, stress, well-being, care demand, and fatigue) to the EMA prompts. Discussion This review showed that using EMA to collect information on family caregivers of adults with chronic health conditions appeared feasible and acceptable. However, the methodology or design of using EMA to collect caregiver information in this population is still preliminary. The limited number of existing studies that have used EMA to capture the daily experiences of family caregivers does not provide key information that could improve understanding of caregivers’ emotional experiences and well-being in real-life situations. We identified gaps in the literature that warrant additional EMA studies for this population.