Using experience sampling methods/ecological momentary assessment (ESM/EMA) in clinical assessment and clinical research: Introduction to the special section.

• DOI: 10.1037/a0017653
• Publication Date: 2009-11-30T19:20:42Z
• Authors: Timothy J. Trull; Ulrich W. Ebner-P...
• Keywords: ddc:796; Biomedical Research; Mood Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Mental Disorders; Writing; Personality Assessment; Social Environment; Anxiety Disorders; Sampling Studies; 796; Telephone; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Athletic & outdoor sports & games; 0302 clinical medicine; Psychotic Disorders; Computers, Handheld; Humans; info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/796

This article introduces the special section on experience sampling methods and ecological momentary assessment in clinical assessment. We review the conceptual basis for experience sampling methods (ESM; Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1987) and ecological momentary assessment (EMA; Stone & Shiffman, 1994). Next, we highlight several advantageous features of ESM/EMA as applied to psychological assessment and clinical research. We provide a brief overview of the articles in this special section, each of which focuses on 1 of the following major classes of psychological disorders: mood disorders and mood dysregulation (Ebner-Priemer & Trull, 2009), anxiety disorders (Alpers, 2009), substance use disorders (Shiffman, 2009), and psychosis (Oorschot, Kwapil, Delespaul, & Myin-Germeys, 2009). Finally, we discuss prospects, future challenges, and limitations of ESM/EMA.