Smartphone-Based Passive Assessment of Mobility in Depression: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Advances in technology have ushered in exciting potential for smartphone sensors to inform mental health care. This commentary addresses the practical challenges of collecting smartphone-based physical activity data. Using data (N = 353) from a large scale, fully remote randomized clinical trial for depression, we discuss findings and limitations associated with using passively collected mobility data to make inferences about depressive symptom severity. We highlight a range of issues in associating mobility data with mental health symptoms, including a high degree of variability, data featurization, granularity, and sparsity. Given the considerable efforts toward leveraging technology in mental health care, it is important to consider these challenges to optimize assessment and guide best practices. Clinical Trials.gov identifier: NCT01808976.

Keywords: depression; mobile health (mHealth); mobility; passive data collection; physical activity; smartphone.

Figures

Figure 1

Scatter plot between mobility (log10 transformed) and daily PHQ-2 score across the study period of 12 weeks for four individuals.