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Updated: Jul 23, 2025
Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
Compliance with ecological momentary assessment programmes in the elderly: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Lin Yao1, Yiqun Yang1, Zhi Wang2
1Department of Nursing, First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
Objective:
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) refers to the repeated sampling of information about an individual's symptoms and behaviours, enabling the capture of ecologically meaningful real-time information in a timely manner. Compliance with EMA is critical in determining the validity of an assessment. However, there is limited evidence related to how the elderly comply with EMA programmes or the factors that are associated with compliance.
Design:
Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data Sources:
PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched up to 17 July 2022.
Eligibility Criteria:
We included observational studies on EMA in the elderly reported in English.
Data Extraction And Synthesis:
Two investigators independently performed screening and data extraction. Discrepancies were resolved by discussion or a third investigator. A systematic review was carried out to characterise the basic characteristics of the participants and EMA programmes. Random-effects meta-analysis was conducted to assess overall compliance and to explore factors associated with differences in compliance among the elderly.
Results:
A total of 20 studies with 2047 participants were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that the combined compliance rate was 86.41% (95% CI: 77.38% to 92.20%; I2=96.4%; p<0.001). Subgroup analysis revealed high levels of heterogeneity in terms of the methods used to assess population classification, assessment method and assessment frequency, although these may not be the sources of heterogeneity. Meta-regression analysis showed that population classification and assessment period might have a significant impact on heterogeneity (p<0.05). Egger's test indicated significant publication bias (p<0.001).
Conclusions:
Compliance with EMA programmes is high in the elderly. It is recommended that scholars design reasonable EMA programmes according to the health status of the elderly in the future.
