Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy

CARE-MAP Study: The perception of everyday mobile data collection and (digital) phenotyping of children, adolescents and their caregivers.

 

PI: Aleksandra Kaurin, Bodo Przibilla

Employees: Jakob Hilger, Jule Wieland

Project Duration: 2025

Intensive longitudinal data collected through Experience Sampling Methods (e.g., Ecological Momentary Assessment [EMA]) or mobile sensing in everyday contexts offer significant advantages for therapy research and help enhance outpatient psychotherapeutic care (Kaurin & Kolar, 2022; Löchner et al., 2025; Mohr et al., 2017; Wright et al., 2025), especially in detecting high-risk states (Kaurin & Kolar, 2022). Collecting data via mobile devices like smartphones or smartwatches — whether through active input or passive sensors — requires acceptance of these methods and presents specific challenges for participants or patients. International research on the acceptance of mobile sensors and EMA, as well as their reliability and participants’ compliance in real-life settings, shows that factors such as the type of sensor used, perceived personal benefit, level of detail, and the amount of data collected influence how adolescents and their parents view these methods (Nestor et al., 2024; Orr et al., 2023). Most of the robust findings in this field come from U.S.-based studies using non-clinical adult samples (Nicholas et al., 2019; Wen et al., 2017), making it difficult to generalize these results to young patients in Germany.
The CARE-MAP project explores how parents of elementary school children (2nd to 4th grade) and adolescents (14 to 18 years) perceive mobile sensing and EMA. The goal is to identify key factors that influence their acceptance, as well as their concerns, in order to find out which conditions support the use of mobile sensing technology and EMA in outpatient psychotherapy and therapy research with young patients.
CARE-MAP employs a cross-sectional, exploratory mixed-methods design (Plano Clark et al., 2008). A qualitative preliminary study will involve individual interviews and focus groups with parents and adolescents, which will be analyzed via content analysis (Mayring, 2019). Based on the preliminary study results, we are developing an online survey that systematically captures the attitudes of patients and their families — designed to be generalizable nationwide and compliant with EU data protection guidelines. The survey will be distributed through an existing network of child and adolescent psychotherapeutic university outpatient clinics.

References

Kaurin, A., & Kolar, D. R. (2022). Ambulantes assessment in der klinischen kinder- und jugendpsychologie = ambulatory assessment in clinical child and adolescent psychology. Die Psychotherapie, 67(6), 486–492. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00278-022-00605-x

Löchner, J., Santangelo, P. S., Ansell, E., Bolger, N., Ebner-Priemer, U., Fried, E., Gawrilow, C., Hamaker, E., Hepp, J., Kaurin, A., Kirtley, O. J., Kubiak, T., Kuppens, P., Laurenceau, J.-P., Myin-Germeys, I., Neubauer, A. B., Schneider, S., Schuller, B., Shiffman, S., … Seizer, L. (2025). Ambulatory Assessment in Mental Health Research: Expert Consensus on Current Practices and Future Directions. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mhb5g_v1

Mayring, P. (2019). Qualitative inhaltsanalyse - abgrenzungen, spielarten, weiterentwicklungen. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3), 1–15. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=138874801&site=ehost-live

Mohr, D. C., Zhang, M., & Schueller, S. M. (2017). Personal sensing: Understanding mental health using ubiquitous sensors and machine learning. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13(Volume 13, 2017), 23–47. doi.orghttps://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032816-044949

Nestor, B. A., Chimoff, J., Koike, C., Weitzman, E. R., Riley, B. L., Uhl, K., & Kossowsky, J. (2024). Adolescent and Parent Perspectives on Digital Phenotyping in Youths With Chronic Pain: Cross-Sectional Mixed Methods Survey Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 26(1), e47781. https://doi.org/10.2196/47781

Nicholas, J., Shilton, K., Schueller, S. M., Gray, E. L., Kwasny, M. J., & Mohr, D. C. (2019). The Role of Data Type and Recipient in Individuals’ Perspectives on Sharing Passively Collected Smartphone Data for Mental Health: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(4), e12578. https://doi.org/10.2196/12578

Orr, M., MacLeod, L., Bagnell, A., McGrath, P., Wozney, L., & Meier, S. (2023). The comfort of adolescent patients and their parents with mobile sensing and digital phenotyping. Computers in Human Behavior, 140, 107603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107603

Plano Clark, V. L., Huddleston-Casas, C. A., Churchill, S. L., O’Neil Green, D., & Garrett, A. L. (2008). Mixed Methods Approaches in Family Science Research. Journal of Family Issues, 29(11), 1543–1566. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X08318251

Wen, C. K. F., Schneider, S., Stone, A. A., & Spruijt-Metz, D. (2017). Compliance With Mobile Ecological Momentary Assessment Protocols in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(4), e132. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6641

Wright, A. G. C., Ringwald, W. R., & Zimmermann, J. (2025). Measuring Psychopathology in Daily Life. Clinical Psychological Science, 21677026241291549. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026241291549

Last modified: 27.02.2025