Implementing Ecological Momentary Assessment in Audiological Research: Opportunities and Challenges.
Nadja Schinkel-Bielefeld, Louise Burke, Inga Holube and 9 others
PMID 38950171WHAT IT FOUND
Ecological Momentary Assessment captures hearing experiences in real life via smartphone prompts, avoiding memory bias.
It faces challenges with participant burden and older adults' tech skills. Clinicians should note it is currently a research tool, not a clinical intervention.
Key findings
01The method allows researchers to capture momentary experiences like loudness or fatigue in daily life, which are hard to remember accurately in retrospective reports.
02A major challenge is balancing data richness with participant burden, as high-frequency prompts can lead to dropouts or non-compliance, especially among employed individuals or those less adept with smartphones.
03While promising for research, the text states that using this method in clinical rehabilitation is an open question requiring further work on usability for patients with low tech-readiness or cognitive impairment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is a methodological review, not an empirical study, so it does not provide new patient outcomes or effect sizes. The authors note that EMA is not yet a mature methodology in audiology, with many open questions regarding analysis and clinical implementation. The review focuses on adult populations and hearing-related outcomes, which may not directly translate to pediatric or non-audiological speech-language pathology contexts without adaptation.
Declared interests
Graham Naylor was supported by the Medical Research Council. Petra von Gablenz was supported by the Research Fund of Jade University of Applied Sciences and the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture/Volkswagen Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret this as evidence that EMA is a validated clinical tool for diagnosis or therapy. The paper describes it as a research methodology with significant unresolved challenges in burden and usability, particularly for older adults and those with cognitive impairments.