Using mobile sensing data to assess stress: Associations with perceived and lifetime stress, mental health, sleep, and inflammation

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Creator
  • Byrne, Michelle L
  • Lind, Monika N
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, USA
  • Horn, Sarah R
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, USA
  • Mills, Kathryn L
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, USA
  • Nelson, Benjamin W
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
  • Barnes, Melissa L
  • Slavich, George M
    • ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5710-3818
    • Other Affiliation: Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
  • Allen, Nicholas B
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, USA
Abstract
  • Background Although stress is a risk factor for mental and physical health problems, it can be difficult to assess, especially on a continual, non-invasive basis. Mobile sensing data, which are continuously collected from naturalistic smartphone use, may estimate exposure to acute and chronic stressors that have health-damaging effects. This initial validation study validated a mobile-sensing collection tool against assessments of perceived and lifetime stress, mental health, sleep duration, and inflammation. Methods Participants were 25 well-characterized healthy young adults (Mage = 20.64 years, SD = 2.74; 13 men, 12 women). We collected affective text language use with a custom smartphone keyboard. We assessed participants’ perceived and lifetime stress, depression and anxiety levels, sleep duration, and basal inflammatory activity (i.e. salivary C-reactive protein and interleukin-1β). Results Three measures of affective language (i.e. total positive words, total negative words, and total affective words) were strongly associated with lifetime stress exposure, and total negative words typed was related to fewer hours slept (all large effect sizes: r = 0.50 – 0.78). Total positive words, total negative words, and total affective words typed were also associated with higher perceived stress and lower salivary C-reactive protein levels (medium effect sizes; r = 0.22 – 0.32). Conclusions Data from this initial longitudinal validation study suggest that total and affective text use may be useful mobile sensing measures insofar as they are associated with several other stress, mental health, behavioral, and biological outcomes. This tool may thus help identify individuals at increased risk for stress-related health problems.
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  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Rights holder
  • SAGE Publications Ltd, unless otherwise noted. Manuscript content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Licenses
License
  • Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Journal title
  • Digital Health
Journal volume
  • 7
Funder
  • Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
  • Branco Weiss Fellowship - Society in Science
  • National Institute of Mental Health
  • National Institute on Aging
  • National Institutes of Health
ISSN
  • 2055-2076
Copyright date
  • 2021
Publisher
  • SAGE Publications

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