DEMONS

Abstract

Depression is a prevalent and debilitating disorder among college students. Advances in mobile technology afford the opportunity to collect heterogeneous data while people are in their natural settings. The aim of the current paper is to propose an integrated framework, DEMONS (DEpression MONitoring Study), for combining passive and active data sources using a wearable sensor and a smartphone application. The ability to combine passive and active longitudinal data with mobile devices allows for better understanding of the temporal relations between self-reported affect and physiological variables (e.g., heart rate variability) linked to depressive symptoms. Adoption of the proposed framework will provide crucial information regarding the development and maintenance of depression in college students, as well as increased opportunities for early detection and intervention.