The Promise of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Improve Depression Management for Older Adults in Primary Care

Abstract

Among older adults, depression is a common, morbid, and costly disorder. Older adults with depression are overwhelmingly treated by primary care providers with poor rates of remission and treatment response, despite attempts to improve care delivery through behavioral health integration and care management models. Given one in 10 older adults in primary care settings meet criteria for depression, there is a pressing need to improve the efficacy of depression treatment among affected individuals. Measurement-based care (i.e., the incorporation of systematic measurement of patient outcomes into treatment) for depressed older adults in primary care has had poor uptake, which at least partly underlies the limited efficacy of depression treatments. In this perspective, we discuss the proposal that ecological momentary assessment (EMA) may increase uptake of measurement-based care for depression in primary care, enhance the quality of clinical depression data, and lead to improvements in treatment efficacy without adding to providers’ burden. We describe key issues related to EMA implementation and application in routine settings for depressed older adults, along with potential pitfalls and future research directions.