title: An Internet-based ecological momentary assessment study relying on participants' own mobile phones: insights from a study with young adult smokers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In this paper we describe a novel Internet-based cell phone-optimized assessment technique (ICAT) to conduct an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study. Participants could access the assessment instrument via the web browsers of their mobile phones.
  
  
  METHODS
  We report results from 92 young adult smokers (18-25 years old) who completed the baseline assessment and the first of 4 waves (3 days/wave) of EMA. Random prompts were issued via text messages sent to the participants. The participants were also instructed to self-initiate reports of smoking situations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compliance with the study protocols was low. In total, the participants completed 885 assessments during the 3 days of monitoring. Only 50.2% of random prompts were responded to, and 52.4% of those were completed within the first 10 min after issuing. Furthermore, reports of smoking situations were rarely self-initiated. In a multivariate regression analysis, age (positively) and female gender (negatively) predicted the number of completed assessments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study adds to the limited experiences made with ICAT in substance use research. Similar to the few prior ICAT studies, compliance was low compared to traditional EMA studies. While using ICAT is technically feasible, specific improvements should be implemented to tap ICAT's full potential in future studies.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Therapieforschung, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thrul
authors.forename: Anneke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bühler
authors.forename: Stuart G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Ferguson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D040421:Cell Phone; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D057566:Self Report; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult