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The Association of Embracing with Daily Mood and General Life Satisfaction: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.

ABSTRACT: Embracing has several positive health effects, such as lowering blood pressure and decreasing infection risk. However, its association with general life satisfaction and daily mood has not been researched in detail. Here, we used a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) approach to monitor the daily number of embraces and daily mood in a sample of 94 adults over the course of seven days. We found that embracing frequency differed slightly over the week, with embracing occurring more frequently on weekends than on weekdays. We also found that higher daily embracing frequencies were associated with better daily mood using multilevel modeling. Only singles benefitted from increases in average embracing regarding their life satisfaction, whereas individuals in a relationship were unaffected by their embracing tendencies. Although our results are strictly correlational and do not indicate any direction or causality, embraces may be important for daily mood and general life satisfaction, but their efficacy seems to depend on relationship status.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10919-022-00411-8.

SUBMITTER: Packheiser J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9362016 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Association of Embracing with Daily Mood and General Life Satisfaction: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.

Packheiser Julian J Malek Imke Marlene IM Reichart Jacqueline Sophia JS Katona Laura L Luhmann Maike M Ocklenburg Sebastian S

Journal of nonverbal behavior 20220804 4

Embracing has several positive health effects, such as lowering blood pressure and decreasing infection risk. However, its association with general life satisfaction and daily mood has not been researched in detail. Here, we used a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) approach to monitor the daily number of embraces and daily mood in a sample of 94 adults over the course of seven days. We found that embracing frequency differed slightly over the week, with embracing occurring m ...[more]

PMID: 35967989

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Ecological momentary assessment is a method of investigating individuals' real-time experiences, behaviors, and moods in their natural environment over time. Despite its general usability and clinical value for evaluating daily depressive mood, there are several methodological challenges when applying ecological momentary assessment to older adults. OBJECTIVE:The aims of this integrative literature review were to examine possible uses of the ecological momentary assessment methodology with older adults and to suggest strategies to increase the feasibility of its application in geriatric depression research and practice. METHODS:We searched 4 electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and EMBASE) and gray literature; we also hand searched the retrieved articles' references. We limited all database searches to articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2009 to 2019. Search terms were "ecological momentary assessment," "smartphone assessment," "real time assessment," "electronic daily diary," "mHealth momentary assessment," "mobile-based app," and "experience sampling method," combined with the relevant terms of depression. We included any studies that enrolled older adults even as a subgroup and that reported depressive mood at least once a day for more than 2 days. RESULTS:Of the 38 studies that met the inclusion criteria, only 1 study enrolled adults aged 65 years or older as the entire sample; the remainder of the reviewed studies used mixed samples of both younger and older adults. Most of the analyzed studies (18/38, 47%) were quantitative, exploratory (descriptive, correlational, and predictive), and cohort in design. Ecological momentary assessment was used to describe the fluctuating pattern of participants' depressive moods primarily and to examine the correlation between mood patterns and other health outcomes as a concurrent symptom. We found 3 key methodological issues: (1) heterogeneity in study design and protocol, (2) issues with definitions of dropout and adherence, and (3) variation in how depressive symptoms were measured with ecological momentary assessment. Some studies (8/38, 21%) examined the age difference of participants with respect to dropout or poor compliance rate. Detailed participant burden was reported, such as technical problems, aging-related health problems, or discomfort while using the device. CONCLUSIONS:Ecological momentary assessment has been used for comprehensive assessment of multiple mental health indicators in relation to depressive mood. Our findings provide methodological considerations for further studies that may be implemented using ecological momentary assessment to assess daily depressive mood in older adults. Conducting more feasibility studies focusing on older adults with standardized data collection protocols and mixed-methods research is required to reflect users' experiences. Further telepsychiatric evaluation and diagnosis based on ecological momentary assessment data should involve standardized and sophisticated strategies to maximize the potential of ecological momentary assessment for older adults with depression in the community setting.

Project description: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.

Project description:BackgroundRecent research has suggested that an increase in temperature can negatively affect mental health and increase hospitalization for mental illness. It is not clear, however, what factors or mechanisms mediate this association. We aimed to (1) investigate the associations between ambient temperatures and bad daily mood, and (2) identify variables affecting the strength of these associations (modifiers) including the time, the day of the week and the year of the mood rating, socio-demographic characteristics, sleep quality, psychiatric disorders and the personality trait neuroticism in the community.MethodsData stemmed from the second follow-up evaluation of CoLaus|PsyCoLaus, a prospective cohort study conducted in the general population of Lausanne (Switzerland). The 906 participants rated their mood level four times a day during seven days using a cell phone app. Mixed-effects logistic regression was used to determine the association between daily maximum temperature and mood level. Participant ID was inserted as a random effect in the model, whereas the time of the day, the day of the week and the year were inserted as fixed effects. Models were controlled for several confounders (socio-demographic characteristics, sleep quality, weather parameters and air pollutants). Stratified analyses were conducted based on socio-demographic characteristics, sleep quality, presence of psychiatric disorders or a high neuroticism.ResultsOverall, the probability of having a bad mood for the entire day decreased by 7.0% (OR: 0.93: 95% CI 0.88, 0.99) for each 5 °C increase in maximum temperature. A smaller and less precise effect (-3%; OR: 0.97: 95% CI 0.91, 1.03) was found when controlling for sunshine duration. A higher association was found in participants with bipolar disorder (-23%; OR: 0.77: 95% CI 0.51, 1.17) and in participants with a high neuroticism (-13%; OR: 0.87 95% CI 0.80, 0.95), whereas the association was reversed for participants with anxiety (20%; OR: 1.20: 95% CI 0.90, 1.59), depression (18%; OR: 1.18 95% CI 0.94, 1.48) and schizophrenia (193%; OR: 2.93 95% CI 1.17, 7.73).ConclusionsAccording to our findings, rising temperatures may positively affect mood in the general population. However, individuals with certain psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, may exhibit altered responses to heat, which may explain their increased morbidity when exposed to high temperatures. This suggests that tailored public health policies are required to protect this vulnerable population.

Dataset Information

The Association of Embracing with Daily Mood and General Life Satisfaction: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.

Supplementary information

Publications

The Association of Embracing with Daily Mood and General Life Satisfaction: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.

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