Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Jan 1;8(4):326-332.
doi: 10.1080/15504263.2012.723318.

A Pilot Study of Mood Ratings Captured by Mobile Phone Versus Paper-and-Pencil Mood Charts in Bipolar Disorder

Colin A Depp  1 , Daniel H Kim, Laura Vergel de Dios, Vicki Wang, Jennifer Ceglowski
Affiliations

A Pilot Study of Mood Ratings Captured by Mobile Phone Versus Paper-and-Pencil Mood Charts in Bipolar Disorder

Colin A Depp et al. J Dual Diagn. .

Abstract

Objective: Patient reported mood charts are frequently used in management of bipolar disorder. Although mood charts have recently been programmed in electronic devices such as mobile phones, little is known about the impact of the method of data capture on the psychometric properties and validity of these data.

Methods: In an ongoing pilot study, a sample of outpatients with bipolar disorder were randomized to either complete mood charts on a mobile phone or a standard paper-and-pencil mood chart as part of a 12 week-intervention (primary outcomes for the trial await study completion). We compared these conditions across single item rating of mood state, and we hypothesized that mobile phone based data capture would produce greater compliance to mood ratings, variability between and within participants, and concurrent validity with blinded clinician-rated affective symptom severity.

Results: A total of 56 participants were randomized and 40 participants were included in the analyses. There were no significant differences between conditions on demographic or clinical variables. The rate of compliance was significantly higher in paper-and-pencil versus mobile phone ratings. Ratings demonstrated significantly more variability within individuals in the mobile phone condition. Mobile phone mood ratings were significantly correlated with clinician-rated depressive symptom severity across the study and with manic symptom severity at the Week 6 assessment, whereas paper-and-pencil ratings were not significantly associated with clinician-rated depression or mania.

Conclusions: Although preliminary, our results suggest a lower rate of compliance with mobile phones compared to paper-and-pencil daily mood rating in bipolar disorder, yet a greater ability to capture variability and concurrent validity in quantifying affective symptoms. This clinical trial is registered at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01670123.

Keywords: bipolar disorder depression; ecological momentary assessment; experience sampling; health technology; mania; psychometrics.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Bauer M, Crits-Christoph P, Ball W, Dewees E, McAllister T, Alahi P, Whybrow P. Independent assessment of manic and depressive symptoms by self-rating Scale characteristics and implications for the study of mania. Archives of General Psychiatry. 1991;48(9):807–812. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1991.01810330031005. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bauer M, Grof P, Gyulai L, Rasgon N, Glenn T, Whybrow PC. Using technology to improve longitudinal studies: Self-reporting with ChronoRecord in bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorder. 2004;6(1):67–74. doi: 10.1046/j.1399-5618.2003.00085.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bauer MS, McBride L, Chase C, Sachs G, Shea N. Manual-based group psychotherapy for bipolar disorder: A feasibility study. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 1998;59(9):449–455. - PubMed
    1. Ben-Zeev D, McHugo GJ, Xie H, Dobbins K, Young MA. Comparing retrospective reports to real-time/real-place mobile assessments in individuals with schizophrenia and a nonclinical comparison group. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 2012;38(3):396–404. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbr171. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ben-Zeev D, Young MA, Madsen JW. Retrospective recall of affect in clinically depressed individuals and controls. Cognition & Emotion. 2009;23(5):1021–1040. doi: 10.1080/02699930802607937. - DOI

Associated data

LinkOut - more resources