Back

Ecological Assessment of Transdiagnostic Clinical Symptoms in Serious Mental Illness with Daily Smartphone Surveys

Chung, Y.; Gillis, B. W.; Rahimi-Eichi, H.; Holstein, V.; Girard, J. M.; Rauch, S. L.; Ongur, D.; Liebenthal, E.; Baker, J. T.

2025-09-28 psychiatry and clinical psychology
10.1101/2025.09.26.25336721 medRxiv
Show abstract

Clinical symptoms in serious mental illness (SMI) fluctuate dynamically, yet standard interview-based assessments often fail to capture these daily changes. Smartphone-based ecological surveys offer a scalable approach to monitoring symptoms in naturalistic settings. We analyzed longitudinal data from 56 outpatients with psychotic or affective disorders who completed 12,984 daily surveys and 1,028 clinical assessments over one year. Machine learning models showed that smartphone surveys moderately estimated Montgomery-[A]sberg Depression Rating Scale (rrm = 0.57; p < 0.001) and Young Mania Rating Scale (rrm = 0.39; p < 0.001) and reliably captured within-person fluctuations. Positive symptoms measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale were also correlated (rrm = 0.24, p < 0.001), though with variable accuracy across participants. Factor modeling showed strongest convergence in negative affective domains, with symptom severity not affecting adherence. These findings highlight smartphone surveys as an ecologically valid tool for real-time symptom monitoring in SMI.

Matching journals

The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.