The following is a summary of “Experiences and Perceptions of Using Smartphone Ecological Momentary Assessment for Reporting Knee Osteoarthritis Pain and Symptoms,” published in the September 2023 issue of Pain by Overton et al.
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent condition that can be monitored using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone, providing more accurate pain assessment. Researchers performed a retrospective study to explore participant experiences and perceptions of smartphone EMA for knee OA pain following participating in a 2-week smartphone EMA study.
They employed a maximum variation sampling approach to invite participants to engage in semi-structured focus group interviews. Eventually, the interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and subjected to thematic analysis using the general inductive approach.
The results showed that 20 participants engaged in 6 focus groups, yielding three themes and 7 sub-themes from the data. These themes encompassed the user experience of smartphone EMA, data quality of smartphone EMA, and practical aspects of smartphone EMA. Investigators concluded that smartphone EMA was deemed an acceptable method for monitoring knee OA pain. These findings can be used in future studies and practices.
