Study Features and Response Compliance in Ecological Momentary Assessment Research in Borderline Personality...

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Research Methodology

Background:

• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is marked by intense emotional and behavioral instability, challenging to measure in daily life.
• Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a valuable method for capturing dynamic BPD processes in real-time, real-world settings.
• Participant compliance is crucial for EMA's effectiveness, yet factors influencing it in BPD research are not well-understood.

Approach:

• A systematic meta-analytic review followed PRISMA and MOOSE guidelines to identify EMA studies on BPD reporting compliance rates.
• Data from 28 studies (2052 participants) were analyzed, focusing on design features like prompting frequency, incentives, and response windows.
• Random-effect models estimated overall compliance and its association with study design elements.

Key Points:

• A pooled compliance rate of 79% was observed across the included EMA studies on BPD.
• Significant variability existed in reported study design features, with many studies omitting crucial details.
• No significant relationship was found between specific design features (e.g., sampling strategy, incentives) and participant compliance rates.

Conclusions:

• EMA study designs for BPD exhibit considerable variability in execution and reporting.
• Compliance rates in EMA for BPD seem robust across different standard design configurations.
• Standard design features may not be the primary drivers of compliance; further research into nonspecific factors and unified reporting standards is recommended.