Ambulatory assessment in psychopathology research: Current achievements and future ambitions

Abstract

Ambulatory assessment (AA) - a collection of methods that aim to track individuals in the realm of everyday life via repeated self-reports or passive mobile sensing - is well established in contemporary psychopathology research. Unravelling the dynamic signature of patients' symptoms and emotions over time and in their own personal ecology, AA methodology has improved our understanding of the real-time pathogenic processes that underlie mental ill-being. In this article, we evaluate the current strengths and shortcomings of AA in psychopathology research and spell out important ambitions for next-generation AA studies to consider. Regarding AA's current achievements, a selective review of recent AA studies underscores the ecological qualities of this method, its ability to bypass retrospective biases in self-report and the introduction of a within-person perspective. Regarding AA's future ambitions, we advocate for a stronger idiosyncratic focus, the incorporation of contextual information and more psychometric scrutiny.

Keywords: Affect dynamics; Ambulatory assessment; Ecological momentary assessment; Experience sampling methods; Mobile sensing; Symptom networks.