Ecological Momentary Assessment for chronic pain in fibromyalgia using a smartphone: A randomized crossover study

摘要

Background: Daily diaries are a useful way of measuring fluctuations in pain-relatedsymptoms. Although this approach entails a repeated assessment, traditional diaries donot assure the gathering of data in real-time, and therefore do not solve the problem ofretrospective assessment. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and, moreconcretely, real-time data capture (RTDC) by means of electronic diaries can help toimprove repeated assessment in chronic pain.Method: The present work contributes to this line of research by comparing theaccuracy and acceptability of an RTDC method running on a smartphone using acrossover design for a sample with a low level of education and low familiarity withtechnology. Forty-seven women diagnosed with fibromyalgia were randomly assignedto one of two conditions: 1) paper diary – smartphone diary, and 2) smartphone diary –paper diary, using each assessment method for one week.Results: The findings of this study showed that the smartphone diary made it possibleto gather more accurate and complete ratings of relevant variables. Besides, this methodwas well accepted by a sample of fibromyalgia patients referred by a public hospitalwith a large proportion of participants with low level of education and low familiaritywith technology.Conclusion: The findings of this study support the use of smartphones for ecologicalmomentary assessment in the field of chronic pain. These methods could help cliniciansand researchers to gather more accurate ratings of relevant pain-related variables even inpopulations with low educational levels and low familiarity with technology.