Variability of the Behavioral Assessment Screening Tool for Mobile Health Using Ecological Momentary Assessment in...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Digital Health

Background:

• Chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI) often leads to persistent behavioral and emotional symptoms.
• Understanding the day-to-day variability of these symptoms is crucial for effective management and treatment.
• Existing assessment methods may not fully capture the dynamic nature of post-TBI symptoms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the variability of self-reported behavioral symptoms over a 2-week period in individuals with chronic TBI.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of different mobile health prompting schedules in capturing symptom variability.
• To identify patterns or clusters of symptom reporting in the TBI population.

Main Methods:

• Secondary analysis of data from a feasibility study using the Behavioral Assessment Screening Tool for Mobile Health (BASTmHealth).
• Inclusion of 44 community-dwelling adults with a history of TBI.
• High-frequency, in situ, repeated-measures design over a 14-day period.

Main Results:

• The 'Every Other Day Scheduled' prompt captured the most between-day variability in behavioral symptoms compared to 'Daily Random' and 'Daily Scheduled' prompts.
• All tested prompting schedules captured within-person variability over the 14-day assessment period.
• Three distinct clusters of symptom reporters were identified: psychiatric, cognitive, and steady.

Conclusions:

• The BASTmHealth tool is capable of capturing and evaluating variability in self-reported emotional and behavioral symptoms within and between individuals post-TBI.
• Understanding individual symptom fluctuations can inform and guide treatment interventions.
• BASTmHealth shows promise as a valuable, evidence-based tool for clinical monitoring and evaluating post-TBI symptoms in research and practice.