Time to get personal? The impact of researchers choices on the selection of treatment targets using the experience sampling methodology

Jojanneke A Bastiaansen; Yoram K Kunkels; Frank J Blaauw; Steven M Boker; Eva Ceulemans; Meng Chen; Sy-Miin Chow; Peter de Jonge; Ando C Emerencia; Sacha Epskamp; Aaron J Fisher; Ellen L Hamaker; Peter Kuppens; Wolfgang Lutz; M Joseph Meyer; Robert Moulder; Zita Oravecz; Harriëtte Riese; Julian Rubel; Oisín Ryan; Michelle N Servaas; Gustav Sjobeck; Evelien Snippe; Timothy J Trull; Wolfgang Tschacher; Date C van der Veen; Marieke Wichers; Phillip K Wood; William C Woods; Aidan G C Wright; Casper J Albers; Laura F Bringmann

doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110211

Time to get personal? The impact of researchers choices on the selection of treatment targets using the experience sampling methodology

J Psychosom Res. 2020 Aug 5:137:110211. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110211. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jojanneke A Bastiaansen¹, Yoram K Kunkels², Frank J Blaauw³, Steven M Boker⁴, Eva Ceulemans⁵, Meng Chen⁶, Sy-Miin Chow⁶, Peter de Jonge⁷, Ando C Emerencia⁸, Sacha Epskamp⁹, Aaron J Fisher¹⁰, Ellen L Hamaker¹¹, Peter Kuppens⁵, Wolfgang Lutz¹², M Joseph Meyer⁴, Robert Moulder⁴, Zita Oravecz⁶, Harriëtte Riese², Julian Rubel¹³, Oisín Ryan¹¹, Michelle N Servaas², Gustav Sjobeck⁴, Evelien Snippe², Timothy J Trull¹⁴, Wolfgang Tschacher¹⁵, Date C van der Veen², Marieke Wichers², Phillip K Wood¹⁴, William C Woods¹⁶, Aidan G C Wright¹⁶, Casper J Albers⁸, Laura F Bringmann¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion regulation, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Psychiatry, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Education and Research, Friesland Mental Health Care Services, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.
² Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion regulation, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Psychiatry, Groningen, the Netherlands.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Distributed Systems group, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
⁵ Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁶ Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA.
⁷ Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion regulation, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Psychiatry, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁸ Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
⁹ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, USA.
¹¹ Department of Methodology and Statistics, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
¹² Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
¹³ Department of Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany.
¹⁴ Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA.
¹⁵ University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
¹⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA.
¹⁷ Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion regulation, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Department of Psychiatry, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. Electronic address: [email protected].

Abstract

Objective: One of the promises of the experience sampling methodology (ESM) is that a statistical analysis of an individual's emotions, cognitions and behaviors in everyday-life could be used to identify relevant treatment targets. A requisite for clinical implementation is that outcomes of such person-specific time-series analyses are not wholly contingent on the researcher performing them.

Methods: To evaluate this, we crowdsourced the analysis of one individual patient's ESM data to 12 prominent research teams, asking them what symptom(s) they would advise the treating clinician to target in subsequent treatment.

Results: Variation was evident at different stages of the analysis, from preprocessing steps (e.g., variable selection, clustering, handling of missing data) to the type of statistics and rationale for selecting targets. Most teams did include a type of vector autoregressive model, examining relations between symptoms over time. Although most teams were confident their selected targets would provide useful information to the clinician, not one recommendation was similar: both the number (0-16) and nature of selected targets varied widely.

Conclusion: This study makes transparent that the selection of treatment targets based on personalized models using ESM data is currently highly conditional on subjective analytical choices and highlights key conceptual and methodological issues that need to be addressed in moving towards clinical implementation.

Keywords: Crowdsourcing science; Electronic diary; Mental disorders; Personalized medicine; Psychological networks; Time-series analysis.

Abstract

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