Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) and Ecological Momentary Interventions (EMI)

Since the advent of psychological therapy, mental health professionals have relied on retrospective interview and paper-based psychological assessments to monitor wellbeing and determine treatment needs. This results in poorly timed and poorly targeted interventions, as individuals are left to wait until their next appointment to report on their experiences and emotions. At Orygen Digital, we have harnessed recent advances in mobile technologies to bring mental health assessment and intervention into young people’s daily lives.

Developed via the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences, Orygen Digital uses a suite of software for designing and conducting real-time mental health assessments. Called SEMA (Smartphone Ecological Momentary Assessment), this software invites young people to regularly “check in” and track their mental health as they go about their day via a brief mobile questionnaire. This allows us to rapidly detect risk and relapse, and identify patterns in young people’s emotions and behaviour that would be missed by traditional assessment approaches. Our interventions powered by this software are able to provide highly responsive therapy, to address each young person’s unique in-the-moment mental health needs.

Projects using this solution: Rebound, Momentum, eOrygen.MOST