scholarly journals Understanding Pregnancy and Postpartum Health Using Ecological Momentary Assessment and Mobile Technology: Protocol for the Postpartum Mothers Mobile Study

10.2196/13569 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. e13569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara D Mendez ◽  
Sarah A Sanders ◽  
Hassan A Karimi ◽  
Pedram Gharani ◽  
Stephen L Rathbun ◽  
...  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara D Mendez ◽  
Sarah A Sanders ◽  
Hassan A Karimi ◽  
Pedram Gharani ◽  
Stephen L Rathbun ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND There are significant racial disparities in pregnancy and postpartum health outcomes, including postpartum weight retention and cardiometabolic risk. These racial disparities are a result of a complex interplay between contextual, environmental, behavioral, and psychosocial factors. OBJECTIVE This protocol provides a description of the development and infrastructure for the Postpartum Mothers Mobile Study (PMOMS), designed to better capture women’s daily experiences and exposures from late pregnancy through 1 year postpartum. The primary aims of PMOMS are to understand the contextual, psychosocial, and behavioral factors contributing to racial disparities in postpartum weight and cardiometabolic health, with a focus on the daily experiences of stress and racism, as well as contextual forms of stress (eg, neighborhood stress and structural racism). METHODS PMOMS is a longitudinal observation study that is ancillary to an existing randomized control trial, GDM2 (Comparison of Two Screening Strategies for Gestational Diabetes). PMOMS uses an efficient and cost-effective approach for recruitment by leveraging the infrastructure of GDM2, facilitating enrollment of participants while consolidating staff support from both studies. The primary data collection method is ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and through smart technology (ie, smartphones and scales). The development of the study includes: (1) the pilot phase and development of the smartphone app; (2) feedback and further development of the app including selection of key measures; and (3) implementation, recruitment, and retention. RESULTS PMOMS aims to recruit 350 participants during pregnancy, to be followed through the first year after delivery. Recruitment and data collection started in December 2017 and are expected to continue through September 2020. Initial results are expected in December 2020. As of early May 2019, PMOMS recruited a total of 305 participants. Key strengths and features of PMOMS have included data collection via smartphone technology to reduce the burden of multiple on-site visits, low attrition rate because of participation in an ongoing trial in which women are already motivated and enrolled, high EMA survey completion and the use of EMA as a unique data collection method to understand daily experiences, and shorter than expected timeframe for enrollment because of the infrastructure of the GDM2 trial. CONCLUSIONS This protocol outlines the development of the PMOMS, one of the first published studies to use an ongoing EMA and mobile technology protocol during pregnancy and throughout 1 year postpartum to understand the health of childbearing populations and enduring racial disparities in postpartum weight and cardiometabolic health. Our findings will contribute to the improvement of data collection methods, particularly the role of EMA in capturing multiple exposures and knowledge in real time. Furthermore, the results of the study will inform future studies investigating weight and cardiometabolic health during pregnancy and the postpartum period, including how social determinants produce population disparities in these outcomes. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPOR DERR1-10.2196/13569


2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Barnow ◽  
Maren Aldinger ◽  
Ines Ulrich ◽  
Malte Stopsack

Die Anzahl der Studien, die sich mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen Emotionsregulation (ER) und depressiven Störungen befassen, steigt. In diesem Review werden Studien zusammengefasst und metaanalytisch ausgewertet, die den Zusammenhang zwischen ER und Depression mittels Fragebögen bzw. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) erfassen. Dabei zeigt sich ein ER-Profil welches durch die vermehrte Nutzung von Rumination, Suppression und Vermeidung bei gleichzeitig seltenerem Einsatz von Neubewertung und Problemlösen gekennzeichnet ist. Mit mittleren bis großen Effekten, ist der Zusammenhang zwischen Depression und maladaptiven Strategien besser belegt als bei den adaptiven Formen, wo die Effekte eher moderat ausfielen. EMA-Messungen bestätigen dieses Profil. Da EMA-Studien neben der Häufigkeit des Strategieeinsatzes auch die Erfassung anderer ER-Parameter wie Effektivität und Flexibilität ermöglichen, sollten solche Designs in der ER-Forschung zukünftig vermehrt Einsatz finden.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Kuntsche ◽  
Florian Labhart

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a way of collecting data in people’s natural environments in real time and has become very popular in social and health sciences. The emergence of personal digital assistants has led to more complex and sophisticated EMA protocols but has also highlighted some important drawbacks. Modern cell phones combine the functionalities of advanced communication systems with those of a handheld computer and offer various additional features to capture and record sound, pictures, locations, and movements. Moreover, most people own a cell phone, are familiar with the different functions, and always carry it with them. This paper describes ways in which cell phones have been used for data collection purposes in the field of social sciences. This includes automated data capture techniques, for example, geolocation for the study of mobility patterns and the use of external sensors for remote health-monitoring research. The paper also describes cell phones as efficient and user-friendly tools for prompt manual data collection, that is, by asking participants to produce or to provide data. This can either be done by means of dedicated applications or by simply using the web browser. We conclude that cell phones offer a variety of advantages and have a great deal of potential for innovative research designs, suggesting they will be among the standard data collection devices for EMA in the coming years.


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