m-Path: an easy-to-use and highly tailorable platform for ecological momentary assessment and intervention in behavioral research and clinical practice

Abstract

In this paper, we present m-Path (www.m-Path.io), an online platform that provides an easy-to-use and highly tailorable framework for implementing smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and intervention (EMI) in both research and clinical practice in the context of blended care. Because real-time monitoring and intervention in people's everyday lives have unparalleled benefits compared to traditional data collection techniques (e.g., retrospective surveys or lab-based experiments), EMA and EMI have become popular in recent years. Although a surge in the use of these methods has led to a myriad of EMA and EMI applications, many existing platforms only focus on a single aspect of daily life data collection (e.g., assessment vs. intervention, active self-report vs. passive mobile sensing, research-dedicated vs. clinically-oriented tools). With m-Path, we aim to integrate all of these facets into a single platform, as it is exactly this all-in-one approach that fosters the clinical utility of accumulated scientific knowledge. To this end, we offer a comprehensive platform to set up complex and highly adjustable EMA and EMI designs with advanced functionalities, using an intuitive point-and click web interface that is accessible for researchers and clinicians with limited programming skills. We discuss the strengths of daily life data collection and intervention in general and m-Path in particular. We describe the regular workflow to set up an EMA or EMI design within the m-Path framework, and summarize both the basic functionalities and more advanced features of our software.