Psychometric Properties of the Korean Version of the PsyMate Scale Using a Smartphone App: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Abstract

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is a method for capturing the changes in the variables in daily life with increased accuracy and decreased recall bias. The PsyMate scale assesses momentary moods in daily life and can be used in various settings.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a Korean version of the PsyMate (K-PsyMate) scale and evaluate its psychometric properties by using the EMA method in patients with moyamoya disease (MMD) in South Korea.

Methods: Patients with MMD aged over 18 years were recruited from July 2018 to January 2019 at the inpatient and outpatient departments of a university hospital in South Korea. The K-PsyMate scale comprising 13 items was developed following a translation/back translation approach of the English version and loaded onto a mobile app. Participants were instructed to enter their moods 4 times a day for 7 consecutive days. Content validity index, factor analysis, and Pearson's correlation were performed for validity analysis. For reliability, intraclass correlation coefficients between the first and last measurements were estimated by mean rating, absolute agreement, and a 2-way mixed-effects model. Usability was analyzed through a descriptive analysis, 2-tailed t test, and analysis of variance, and the results were confirmed by Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test, as the dependent variable was not normally distributed.

Results: In total, 1929 assessments from 93 patients were analyzed. The mean age of the participants was 40.59 (SD 10.06) years, and 66 (71%) of the 93 participants were women. Content validity was excellent as content validity index was 0.99, and 2 factors, negative affect and positive affect, were derived by an exploratory factor analysis. The correlations between the subdomains of the K-PsyMate scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were significant (P<.001). The agreement between the first and last measurements was poor to moderate according to the obtained intraclass correlation coefficient values. Usability was evaluated by 67 (72%) out of the 93 participants. The participants rated the accuracy of assessing their momentary moods on the app at 4.13 (SD 0.97), easiness in understanding questions, operating, and inputting answers at 4.12 (SD 0.88), and interruption by the survey alarms at 2.48 (SD 1.02) out of 5.

Conclusions: The K-PsyMate scale has good validity but poor to moderate agreement, which reflects the characteristics of the EMA data collected in real and natural living environments without control. The findings of our study show that the K-PsyMate scale uploaded in a mobile app can be a valid and reliable tool for evaluating the momentary mood of patients with MMD because using a mobile app is convenient and patients are familiar with their own smartphones, which they use in their daily lives.