Use of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Measure Dyspnea in COPD

Abstract

Dyspnea is an unpredictable and distressing symptom of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Dyspnea is challenging to measure due to the heterogeneity of COPD and recall bias associated with retrospective reports. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a technique used to collect symptoms in real-time within a natural environment, useful for monitoring symptom trends and risks of exacerbation in COPD. EMA can be integrated into mobile health (mHealth) platforms for repeated data collection and used alongside physiological measures and behavioral activity monitors. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of mHealth and EMA for dyspnea measurement, consider clinical implications of EMA in COPD management, and identify needs for future research in this area.

Keywords:

• COPD
• ecological momentary assessment
• mobile health
• dyspnea
• mHealth
• telehealth

Human Rights

No human subjects were involved in this project.

Informed Consent

No human subjects were involved in this project.

Welfare of Animals

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Disclosure

Dr Marta Walentynowicz reports grants from Research Foundation Flanders, during the conduct of the study. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute, with an academic home at the Medical University of South Carolina, National Institutes of Health/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (grant numbers KL2 TR001452 & UL1 TR001450), by the South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare as part of the state’s rural health initiative, and by the South Carolina Telehealth Alliance (SCTA) Telehealth Translational Research Pilot Project Grant.