Characterizing Affective Instability Using EMA

描述(由申请者提供)：这项研究将使用情感和情绪、行为评估和心理测量学领域的方法、技术和发现来阐明BPD的一个核心特征，即情感不稳定。在这个修订的应用中，我们建议使用生态瞬时评估(EMA)对情感不稳定性进行深入研究-通过手持计算机对行为、情绪和认知变量进行实时评估。研究参与者将包括75名BPD门诊患者和75名精神对照组(患有严重抑郁障碍)，他们将在28天内每天对自己的情绪状态、行为和生活事件进行6次评级。我们将解决四个主要目标：(1)描述BPD患者的情绪状态模式，并将这些模式与近邻诊断的患者(在本案例中为重度抑郁症)的模式进行比较；(2)识别情绪变化的前因(生活事件)和结果(物质使用行为)；(3)确定BPD患者是否能够准确地回忆(通过回溯性自我报告工具)他们的情绪变化以及与这些变化相关的变量；以及(4)评估现有的情绪不稳定、情感强度和个性测量是否与情绪变化和情绪变化的EMA测量有关。这项研究将代表对情感不稳定最深入、最自然的研究，它将解决几个关于情感不稳定的理论问题。此外，这些结果将对治疗和情感不稳定的评估产生影响。这项研究的资金将使我们能够为计划在未来进行这一领域研究的高级研究生提供多学科培训。这项研究的完成还将使我们能够进行多项研究，旨在阐明EMA在BPD评估中的效用以及EMA在追踪治疗效果方面的效用，并参与BPD及其特征多学科研究中心的发展，这将促进拥有心理测量学和测量理论、心理生物学、社会和情感神经科学以及基础行为科学专业知识的科学家之间的合作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study will use methods, techniques, and findings from the fields of affect and emotion, behavioral assessment, and psychometrics to shed light on a core feature of BPD, affective instability. In this revised application, we propose to conduct an intensive study of affective instability using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) --- a real time assessment of behaviors, emotions, and cognitive variables via hand held computers. Study participants will include 75 BPD outpatients and 75 psychiatric controls (with Major Depressive Disorder) who will rate their mood states, behaviors, and life events six times per day for a 28 day period. We will address four major aims: (1) characterize the mood state patterns of BPD patients and contrast these patterns with those of patients of near-neighbor diagnoses (in this case major depression); (2) identify antecedents (life events) and consequents (substance use behaviors) of mood shifts; (3) determine whether BPD patients can accurately recall (via retrospective self-report instruments) their mood shifts and variables associated with these shifts; and (4) assess whether existing measures of affective instability, affective intensity, and personality are related to EMA measures of affective variability and mood shifts. This study will represent the most intensive, naturalistic study of affective instability, and it will address several theoretical questions regarding affective instability. Further, these results will have implications for treatment and for the assessment of affective instability. Funding for this study will allow us to provide multidisciplinary training to an advanced graduate student who plans to conduct research in this area in the future. Completion of this study will also enable us to conduct multiple studies aimed at elucidating the utility of EMA in the assessment of BPD and the utility of EMA in tracking treatment effects, as well as to take part in the development of a multidisciplinary center for the study of BPD and its features that will foster collaborations among scientists with expertise in psychometrics and measurement theory, psychobiology, social and affective neuroscience, and basic behavioral science.