Adapting the Daily Inventory of Stressful Events for SMS Delivery: Recommendations for Research

Identifying procedures to reduce the burden of data collection and facilitate data collection through use of technology is a promising opportunity for researchers. We used the Daily Inventory of Stressful Events (DISE), a widely used measure of daily stressors to explore administering the measure through automated text messaging. The DISE is a popular and well validated instrument. However, the DISE relies on interviews conducted one-on-one with participants over several days and, as such, presents a high burden to both participants and researchers. Thus, many researchers have opted to simplify the measure by substituting the interview with a battery of survey questions. For a feasibility study addressing dementia caregiver stress and self-care, this paper aims to identify and communicate the lessons learned from a DISE adaptation delivered via phone text messages. While the adaptation was used to reduce participant and researcher burden, it still provides information about the variability in daily stressors experienced by participants. However, several design choices made in the adaptation of DISE to SMS delivery limited the usefulness of the data. As such, this paper provides recommendations for enhancing the utility of mobile phone text-based delivery of DISE or other measures and highlights the need for further validity work on such adaptations.