Maintenance Notice

Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Who will be affected?

Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Informatics

Date Submitted: Jun 14, 2025
Date Accepted: Feb 5, 2026

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Real-Time Symptom Ratings Using Ecological Momentary Assessment Versus Traditional Questionnaires in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Observational Study

Palmen B, van Herck M, Goërtz YM, Ebadi Z, Deng Q, Thong MS, Burtin C, Peters JB, Sprooten RT, Bischoff EW, Wouters EF, Vercoulen JH, Houben-Wilke S, Janssen DJ, Spruit MA, Vaes AW

Real-Time Symptom Ratings Using Ecological Momentary Assessment Versus Traditional Questionnaires in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Observational Study

JMIR Med Inform 2026;14:e79001

DOI: 10.2196/79001

PMID: 41945659

Comparing Real-Time Symptom Ratings via Ecological Momentary Assessment and Traditional Questionnaires in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Observational Study

  • Banchia Palmen; 
  • Maarten van Herck; 
  • Yvonne MJ Goërtz; 
  • Zjala Ebadi; 
  • Qichen Deng; 
  • Melissa SY Thong; 
  • Chris Burtin; 
  • Jeannette B Peters; 
  • Roy TM Sprooten; 
  • Erik WMA Bischoff; 
  • Emiel FM Wouters; 
  • Jan H Vercoulen; 
  • Sarah Houben-Wilke; 
  • Daisy JA Janssen; 
  • Martijn A Spruit; 
  • Anouk W Vaes

ABSTRACT

Background:

Questionnaires assessing symptoms in COPD rely on retrospective reporting, introducing recall bias and missing symptom variability. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) addresses these limitations by capturing real-time symptom data.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to compare EMA symptom ratings with traditional questionnaires in patients with COPD.

Methods:

A subsample from the FAntasTIGUE study rated symptoms using questionnaires (Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) Dyspnea Scale, Physical Activity Rating Scale - Dyspnea Questionnaire (PARS-D), Checklist Individual Strength – subscale subjective Fatigue (CIS-Fatigue), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and COPD Assessment Test (CAT)) and EMA. Further, participants rated breathlessness, fatigue, anxiety and energy level on a 7-point Likert-scale during eight random EMA prompts daily for five days.

Results:

Among 54 participants (67±7 years, FEV1% 53±20, 63% men) EMA response rate was 76.1%. EMA scores moderate-to-strongly correlated with questionnaire scores (rs = 0.49–0.78, all P<.05) and varied across severity groups (all P<.05). EMA captured significant within- and between-day symptom variability.

Conclusions:

EMA is a valid tool for COPD symptom assessment, capturing real-time fluctuations to improve symptom management.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Palmen B, van Herck M, Goërtz YM, Ebadi Z, Deng Q, Thong MS, Burtin C, Peters JB, Sprooten RT, Bischoff EW, Wouters EF, Vercoulen JH, Houben-Wilke S, Janssen DJ, Spruit MA, Vaes AW

Real-Time Symptom Ratings Using Ecological Momentary Assessment Versus Traditional Questionnaires in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Observational Study

JMIR Med Inform 2026;14:e79001

DOI: 10.2196/79001

PMID: 41945659

Download PDF


Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.

© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.