Who Benefits from Mobile Health Interventions? A Dynamical Systems Analysis of Psychological Well-Being in Early Adults

Research shows that skills for improving Psychological Well-Being (PWB) may be learned through PWB interventions; however, the dynamical mechanisms underlying this learning process are not well understood. Using an Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) design, we conducted an 8-week Randomized Controlled Trial (N=160; aged 18-22 years), implemented in a mobile Health (mHealth) platform to characterize these dynamical mechanisms. College-attending early adults were randomized to three groups: an active control group (N=55); an intervention group (N=51) with positive practices intervention; and a second intervention group (N=54) with positive practices and meditation intervention. The mHealth implementation allowed us to introduce the interventions in participants’ daily lives while also assessing their PWB several times a day. We used a Bayesian process-oriented modeling approach to analyze changes in PWB in terms of dynamical processes of change. Findings suggested that the mobile assessment tool itself may have longitudinally improved college-attending early adults’ PWB, as evidenced by instances of directional changes in dynamic characteristics (increased within-person mean levels, decreased intra-individual variability, and increased regulation) of PWB measures. Moreover, although the EMIs did not add benefit over mobile assessments at the group level, they improved PWB for those who had low baseline negative affect levels.