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. 2025 Jun:348:116400.
doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116400. Epub 2025 Mar 15.

Feasibility and utility of ecological momentary assessment to measure mental health issues in perinatal women: Scoping review

Xin Zhang  1 , Wenjin Cui  1 , Jiarui Yao  1 , Yaya Zhang  1 , Yanhong Wang  2
Affiliations

Feasibility and utility of ecological momentary assessment to measure mental health issues in perinatal women: Scoping review

Xin Zhang et al. Psychiatry Res. 2025 Jun.

Abstract

Background: Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) allows real-time, repeated evaluations of emotions and thoughts in natural settings, effectively avoiding retrospective bias associated with traditional surveys and capturing the dynamic nature of psychological variables. However, its feasibility, utility, and methodological details for studying or monitoring maternal mental health remain unclear.

Objectives: This review aims to assess the feasibility and utility of EMA in perinatal women with mental health issues, identify application gaps, and explore future directions for its development.

Methods: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines for systematic reviews. Both the feasibility and utility of the extracted data were analyzed. Feasibility was evaluated using response-related results, study design, and data collection methods, while utility was assessed based on evaluation outcomes.

Results: Of the 27 studies meeting inclusion criteria, EMA protocols demonstrated an average compliance rate of 80% (ranging from 63% to 96%), indicating strong feasibility for assessing diverse outcome variables. EMA proved useful in predicting or evaluating trends in maternal psychological symptoms and exploring relationships between variables. However, several gaps were identified, including limited sample representation, high participant burden, and insufficient development of ecological momentary interventions to support maternal mental health.

Conclusion: EMA is both feasible and useful for addressing maternal mental health issues. Future improvements to EMA protocols should focus on reducing participant burden, addressing response-related challenges, and enhancing their application in perinatal mental health management.

Keywords: Ambulatory assessment; Ecological momentary assessment; Mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personalrelationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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