EMA and Pathverse:

1. Time-based EMA: LAUNCHED!
2. Event-triggered EMA: COMING SOON!

How can Pathverse help with creating EMA studies? 

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies involve repetitively sampling subjects’ behaviours in real-time through tools like diaries, surveys, or sensors. Using EMA minimizes a recall bias, a limitation with self-report studies. EMA studies maximize ecological validity, as subjects’ are in their natural environment. The landscape of EMA research is evolving, and we’re happy to support these studies on the Pathverse platform. Pathverse allows you to create studies efficiently on our no-code platform. Our point-and-click features effortlessly help you decrease the cost and time it takes to employ EMA studies and allow for maximal customization to make the study your own.

How to deliver EMA studies with Pathverse:

With Pathverse, you can select your study delivery logic as an “EMA” study. Currently, we support a fully customizable time-based EMA. Once you’ve selected this method, you can tailor a variety of functions, including:

1. Release interval
   • Number of days from the start date that you want the module to release
   • i.e., if you are releasing your first lesson, you may want the interval to be set as “0” days from the study release date
   • TIP: you set your module release date for each participant, making rolling recruitment a stress-free process!
2. Notification title
   • This will appear bolded on your participant’s Smartphone
   • TIP: keep this short to grab their attention
3. Notification message
   • A brief description of the action item you would like the participant to achieve
   • We recommend 200 or less characters
4. Release hour
   • The exact time you would like the module to be released
   • This is in 12-hour clock format (AM/PM) and is individualized to the participant’s time zone

Our EMA studies allow the same functionality as the rest of our Pathverse studies, meaning you can:

• Collect third party wearable data from the users
• Download and analyze lesson completion and survey answers

What’s next? 

Pathverse currently supports time-based EMA, with your subjects’ receiving notifications at customized times throughout the day. Our development team is currently working to expand our EMA capabilities and develop event-triggered EMA. With GPS features, you’ll be able to trigger a notification to your subjects’ Smartphone to complete their assessment. These features will also integrate with our next feature launch: JUST IN TIME ADAPTIVE INTERVENTIONS (JITAI). When you couple our EMA features with our sophisticated intervention delivery features, you will be able to create purposeful and efficacious JITAI.