The experience sampling method in mental health care: integrating research and practice

The experience sampling method (ESM), where individuals fill in short questionnaires in their daily lives multiple times per day, has been used as a psychological research method for decades, but is increasingly viewed as a potential tool in mental health care. There are many possible clinical ESM applications, but research on this front is still in its infancy. The aim of this thesis was to explore how ESM can be used to gain insights into the psychopathological processes of individual patients and how it can be integrated into mental health care practice. Following a general introduction, the thesis includes a chapter with a “traditional” application of ESM in a research sample, two chapters discussing promising ways to use ESM to gain insights into patterns of individual patients, three chapters on the development, testing, and application of two ESM tools for use in clinical practice, and a general discussion. Taken together, these chapters describe two different roles for ESM in clinical practice: In its first role, ESM is used as a tool to capture psychological constructs in the patient, analogue to its role in research. This thesis offers discussions of this approach. In its second role, ESM is used as a tool to capture the individual perspective of the patient, analogue to more patient-focused methods in clinical practice. This thesis especially develops this second, relatively novel, approach, which involves the close collaboration between patient and clinician, personalization of ESM assessment, the use of open-ended ESM questions, and an inductive approach to the analysis of ESM data.