Publication detail

Early adults face an important developmental transition that can be accompanied by increased risk for mental health issues and vulnerability to stress and adversity. Increased levels of psychological well-being (PWB) have been found to buffer this risk. Research shows that skills for improving PWB may be learned through PWB interventions; however, the dynamical mechanisms underlying this learning process are not well understood. We conducted an 8-week Randomized Control Trial (N= 160; aged 18-22 years; middle-to high-SES; 77% White, 12% Asian, 6% black, 4% Latino, and 1% did not disclose their race), implemented in a mobile Health (mHealth) framework. We had three groups: an active control group (N= 55); an intervention group (N= 51) with positive practice intervention (PPI); and a second intervention group (N= 54) with positive practice and meditation intervention. Assessments and interventions were all delivered via the participant’s mobile device. The mHealth implementation allowed as to assess the participants’ PWB levels several times a day, providing rich data for understanding the dynamics of change. We used a process-oriented approach in combination with a Bayesian model (dubbed as GoHiAR) to analyze changes in PWB in terms of dynamical characteristics of the learning process. Findings suggested that the mobile assessment tool itself may have longitudinally improved college student PWB, as evidenced by instances of directional changes in dynamic characteristics (increased mean levels, decreased fluctuation, and increased regulation) of PWB measures. Moreover, although the mHealth interventions did not add benefit over mobile assessment at the group level overall, they improved PWB for students who had low baseline negative affect levels.

@article{heshmati_etal:preprint:heterogeneous,
    title   = {{C}apturing the heterogeneous effects of a mobile-health psychological well-being intervention for early adults: results from a process-oriented approach},
    author  = {Heshmati, Saeideh and Muth, Chelsea and Li, Yanling and Roeser, Robert W. and Smyth, Joshua M. and Vandekerckhove, Joachim and Chow, Sy-Miin and Oravecz, Zita},
    year    = {preprint},
    journal = {PsyArXiv}
}