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Assessing repetitive negative thinking in daily life: Development of an ecological momentary assessment paradigm.

ABSTRACT: Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a transdiagnostic process and a promising target for prevention and treatment of mental disorders. RNT is typically assessed via self-report questionnaires with most studies focusing on one type of RNT (i.e., worry or rumination) and one specific disorder (i.e., anxiety or depression). However, responses to such questionnaires may be biased by memory and metacognitive beliefs. Recently, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) has been employed to minimize these biases. This study aims to develop an EMA paradigm to measure RNT as a transdiagnostic process in natural settings. Based on empirical and theoretical considerations, an item pool was created encompassing RNT content and processes. We then (1) tested model fit of a content-related and a process-related model for assessing RNT as an individual difference variable, (2) investigated the reliability and construct validity of the proposed scale(s), and (3) determined the optimal sampling design. One hundred fifty healthy participants aged 18 to 40 years filled out baseline questionnaires on rumination, worry, RNT, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Participants received 8 semi-random daily prompts assessing RNT over 14 days. After the EMA phase, participants answered questionnaires on depression, anxiety, and stress again. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis revealed excellent model fit for the process-related model but unsatisfactory fit for the content-related model. Different hybrid models were additionally explored, yielding one model with satisfactory fit. Both the process-related and the hybrid scale showed good reliability and good convergent validity and were significantly associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress after the EMA phase when controlling for baseline scores. Further analyses found that a sampling design of 5 daily assessments across 10 days yielded the best tradeoff between participant burden and information retained by EMA. In sum, this paper presents a promising paradigm for assessing RNT in daily life.

SUBMITTER: Rosenkranz T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7170251 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Assessing repetitive negative thinking in daily life: Development of an ecological momentary assessment paradigm.

Rosenkranz Tabea T Takano Keisuke K Watkins Edward R ER Ehring Thomas T

PloS one 20200420 4

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a transdiagnostic process and a promising target for prevention and treatment of mental disorders. RNT is typically assessed via self-report questionnaires with most studies focusing on one type of RNT (i.e., worry or rumination) and one specific disorder (i.e., anxiety or depression). However, responses to such questionnaires may be biased by memory and metacognitive beliefs. Recently, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) has been employed to minimize thes ...[more]

PMID: 32310979

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Project description:BackgroundTinnitus is a heterogeneous condition which may be associated with moderate to severe disability, but the reasons why only a subset of individuals is burdened by the condition are not fully clear. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) allows a better understanding of tinnitus by capturing the fluctuations of tinnitus symptoms, such as distress and loudness, and psychological processes, such as emotional arousal, overall stress, mood, and concentration and how these variables interact over time. Whether any of those variables have an influence over the next day, that is, whether any of these variables are auto- or cross-correlated, is still unanswered.ObjectivesAssess whether behavioral and symptom-related data from tinnitus users from the TrackYourTinnitus (TYT) mobile app have an impact on tinnitus loudness and distress on subsequent days.MethodsAnonymized data was collected from 278 users of the iOS or Android TYT apps between 2014 and 2020. Tinnitus-related distress, tinnitus loudness, concentration level, mood, emotional arousal, and overall stress level were assessed using either a slider or the Wong-Baker Pain FACES scale via a daily survey. Three modeling strategies were used to investigate whether tinnitus loudness and distress are affected by previous days symptoms or psychological processes: auto- and cross correlations, regressions with elastic net regularization, and subgrouping within group iterative multiple model estimation (S-GIMME).ResultsNo autocorrelation or cross-correlation was observed at the group level between the variables assessed. However, application of the regression models with elastic net regularization identified individualized predictors of tinnitus loudness and distress for most participants, with the models including contemporaneous and lagged information from the previous day. S-GIMME corroborated these findings by identifying individualized predictors of tinnitus loudness and distress from the previous day.DiscussionWe showed that tinnitus loudness and tinnitus distress are affected by the contemporaneous and lagged dynamics of behavioral and emotional processes measured through EMA. These effects were seen at the group, and individual levels. The relevance EMA and the implications of the insights derived from it for tinnitus care are discussed, especially considering current trends toward the individualization of tinnitus care.

Dataset Information

Assessing repetitive negative thinking in daily life: Development of an ecological momentary assessment paradigm.

Publications

Assessing repetitive negative thinking in daily life: Development of an ecological momentary assessment paradigm.

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