Evaluating visual feedback of experience sampling data for mental health practitioners
Piot,Maarten Dejonckheere,Egon Tuinstra,Anke Tijs,Imke Kuppens,Peter Verdonck,Stijn
Piot,Maarten
Dejonckheere,Egon
Tuinstra,Anke
Tijs,Imke
Kuppens,Peter
Verdonck,Stijn
Abstract
Background The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) allows to capture and quantify people's daily experiences, thoughts, and behaviors in real-world contexts. While ESM holds great promise for informing case conceptualization and improving therapeutic targeting in mental health care, visualizations of self-reported ESM data remain largely tailored to researchers and are often not easy to interpret for mental health practitioners. To what extent such visualizations can assist practitioners within their context of mental health care remains still unclear. Objective This study investigates the effect of including uncertainty information in visualizations of ESM feedback on practitioners' decision-making processes. Methods We recruited 40 Belgian mental health practitioners and students in their last year of psychology or educational science studies to take part in an experiment that assessed their proficiency in interpreting ESM feedback based on reality-inspired clinical cases. Three variables (i.e., interactive hover function, error bars, and textual descriptions about effect size and confidence interval) were manipulated in a balanced factorial design to determine their effects on correct data interpretation. Results The results indicate that providing textual descriptions about effect size and confidence intervals increased practitioners' confidence levels and accuracies compared to error bars alone. Furthermore, practitioners want to integrate ESM feedback into treatment. When ESM feedback was associated with low confidence, they preferred to further explore the clinical case. In contrast, when ESM feedback was associated with high confidence, they opted for more action-oriented interventions. Conclusion These findings underscore the importance of including textual descriptions in graphical visualizations as they help to improve practitioners' decision-making processes in mental health care.
Description
Date
2025-12
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
E-health, Clinical implementation, Experience sampling, Blended care, Personalized care, Visual feedback
Citation
Piot, M, Dejonckheere, E, Tuinstra, A, Tijs, I, Kuppens, P & Verdonck, S 2025, 'Evaluating visual feedback of experience sampling data for mental health practitioners', Internet Interventions, vol. 42, 100873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2025.100873