Intensive longitudinal (IL) designs provide the potential to study symptoms as they evolve in real-time within individuals. This has promising clinical implications, potentially allowing conclusions at the level of specific individuals. The current study aimed to establish the feasibility of IL designs, as indicated by self-rated burden and attrition, in the context of psychiatry. Additionally, we evaluated three core assumptions about the instruments (diary items) used in IL designs. These assumptions are: diary items (1) reflect experiences that change over time within individuals (indicated by item variability), (2) are interpreted consistently over time, and (3) correspond to retrospective assessments of psychopathology. TRAILS TRANS-ID is an add-on IL study in the clinical cohort of the TRAILS study. Daily diaries on psychopathological symptoms for six consecutive months were completed by 134 at risk young adults (age 22.6 ± 0.6 years). At baseline, immediately after the diary period, and one year after the diary period, participants completed a diagnostic interview. Excellent compliance (88.5% of the diaries completed), low participant burden (M = 3.21; SD = 1.42; range 1–10), and low attrition (8.2%) supported the feasibility of six-month IL designs. Diary items differed in their variability over time. Evaluation of the consistency of diary item interpretations showed that within-individual variability in scores could not be attributed to changing interpretations over time. Further, daily symptom reports reasonably correlated with retrospective assessments (over a six month period) of psychopathology obtained with the diagnostic interview, suggesting that both measures might complement each other. The current study is the first to show that IL designs over extensive periods (i.e., multiple months) in psychiatry are feasible, and meet three core assumptions to study change in psychopathology. This might allow for addressing novel and promising hypotheses in our field, and might substantially alter how we treat and study mental ill-health.

中文翻译：

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衡量日常生活中展开的精神病理学：解决 TRAILS TRANS-ID 研究中强化纵向方法的关键假设。


强化纵向（IL）设计提供了研究个体体内实时演变的症状的潜力。这具有良好的临床意义，有可能在特定个体水平上得出结论。当前的研究旨在确定 IL 设计的可行性，如精神病学背景下的自评负担和损耗所表明的那样。此外，我们还评估了 IL 设计中使用的工具（日记项目）的三个核心假设。这些假设是：日记项目（1）反映个体随时间变化的经历（由项目变异性表示），（2）随着时间的推移得到一致的解释，（3）对应于精神病理学的回顾性评估。 TRAILS TRANS-ID 是 TRAILS 研究临床队列中的一项附加 IL 研究。 134 名高危年轻人（年龄 22.6 ± 0.6 岁）连续六个月完成了有关精神病理症状的每日日记。在基线、日记结束后以及日记结束一年后，参与者完成了诊断访谈。出色的依从性（88.5% 的日记已完成）、参与者负担低（M = 3.21；SD = 1.42；范围 1-10）和低流失率 (8.2%) 支持六个月 IL 设计的可行性。日记项目随着时间的推移其变化性有所不同。对日记项目解释一致性的评估表明，个体内得分的变异性不能归因于随着时间的推移解释的变化。此外，每日症状报告与通过诊断访谈获得的精神病理学回顾性评估（超过六个月）合理相关，表明这两种措施可能相互补充。 目前的研究首次表明，在精神病学中长期（即几个月）的IL设计是可行的，并且满足研究精神病理学变化的三个核心假设。这可能有助于解决我们领域中新颖且有前途的假设，并可能大大改变我们治疗和研究心理疾病的方式。