Chia-Ling Fang

BACKGROUND Repeated assessment can describe anhedonia over time, but interpretable temporal signals require evaluation under realistic missingness and participant burden. Moving averages compare recent experience with longer-term patterns without assuming that a smoothed trajectory is a validated clinical warning. OBJECTIVE This second-year study will evaluate the feasibility and temporal information of 7-, 14-, and 30-day moving averages in a cross-device anhedonia monitoring platform, extending the published Part I methodological protocol. METHODS This prospective observational study in Taiwan targets 202 participants: 101 psychiatric outpatients and 101 university students. A separate implementation cohort comprises 30 hospitalized service members. Participants undertake 24 weeks of ecological momentary assessment using a current-state adaptation of the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale, targeting 3 participant-initiated assessments per day with 5-hour spacing. Optional evening LINE reminders depend on noncompletion, while participants can view descriptive weather and trend feedback. One daily mean will support calendar-defined moving averages. Three crossover pairs will be compared in 100 northern participants, with a selected rule evaluated without retuning in 102 central participants. The target is a first observed sustained threshold-state transition within the subsequent 14 days. Evaluation includes computational availability, event capture, false-signal burden, lead time, and comparison with the current score. Missingness sensitivities and continuous level, slope, and instability features are secondary analyses. RESULTS The funded project began on August 1, 2026. As of September 22, 2026, recruitment is ongoing and no outcome analyses have been conducted. The grant work plan schedules recruitment through March 2027 and analysis activities during April-July 2027. Final analysis will follow completion of the relevant 24-week observation periods; enrollment continuing through March would extend final follow-up to September 2027. CONCLUSIONS The study will establish the achievable observation density and assess whether moving-average signals add temporal information beyond current anhedonia severity. Forecasting within the same symptom series will be interpreted separately from independently verified clinical deterioration or clinical benefit.

Background: Anhedonia is a core symptom of depressive disorders. Although group-level cutoff points for the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) are established, real-time, individual-level monitoring remains limited. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) enables high-frequency sampling, and simple moving averages (SMA; 7/14/30 days) offer an interpretable way to smooth daily signals and surface early-warning trends. Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and validate a cross-device platform that collects EMA-based SHAPS responses and visualizes SMA trends for individual anhedonia monitoring. This part I protocol focuses on platform design, feasibility, usability, data quality, and initial analytical validity to inform subsequent evaluation. Methods: We will conduct a single-arm methodological pilot in approximately 24 adults, recruited from an outpatient psychiatry clinic (clinical cohort) and a university setting (nonclinical cohort). After baseline assessment, participants will complete 30 days of daily EMA-SHAPS. Primary outcomes are feasibility (adherence, missingness patterns, timing fidelity) and usability/face validity (eg, System Usability Scale, qualitative feedback). We will also describe expert content validity ratings for key visual elements and exploratory analytic checks of within-person variability and the descriptive behavior of 7/14/30-day moving averages; these analyses are not powered for confirmatory hypothesis testing. Results: This protocol specifies the design–validate sequence, recruitment procedures, and predefined adherence and missing-data rules for computing moving averages. Recruitment for the year-1 feasibility pilot is scheduled to begin in March 2026 following institutional review board approval (approval 114006; approval date: June 10, 2025), with feasibility metrics, usability indices, and parameter estimates used to refine alert logic and power calculations for a planned part II evaluation. Conclusions: Combining EMA-SHAPS with SMA-based trend visualizations may provide an interpretable way to summarize daily anhedonia signals and generate candidate early-warning indicators. This methodological pilot will deliver feasibility, usability, and preliminary analytic parameters needed to support a subsequent controlled evaluation of the platform’s clinical utility. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/84024

BACKGROUND Anhedonia is a core symptom of depressive disorders. Although group-level cutoff points for the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) are established, real-time, individual-level monitoring remains limited. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) enables high-frequency sampling, and simple moving averages (SMA; 7/14/30 days) offer an interpretable way to smooth daily signals and surface early-warning trends. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop and validate a cross-device platform that collects EMA-based SHAPS responses and visualizes SMA trends for individual anhedonia monitoring. This part I protocol focuses on platform design, feasibility, usability, data quality, and initial analytical validity to inform subsequent evaluation. METHODS We will conduct a single-arm methodological pilot in approximately 24 adults, recruited from an outpatient psychiatry clinic (clinical cohort) and a university setting (nonclinical cohort). After baseline assessment, participants will complete 30 days of daily EMA-SHAPS. Primary outcomes are feasibility (adherence, missingness patterns, timing fidelity) and usability/face validity (eg, System Usability Scale, qualitative feedback). We will also describe expert content validity ratings for key visual elements and exploratory analytic checks of within-person variability and the descriptive behavior of 7/14/30-day moving averages; these analyses are not powered for confirmatory hypothesis testing. RESULTS This protocol specifies the design–validate sequence, recruitment procedures, and predefined adherence and missing-data rules for computing moving averages. Recruitment for the year-1 feasibility pilot is scheduled to begin in March 2026 following institutional review board approval (approval 114006; approval date: June 10, 2025), with feasibility metrics, usability indices, and parameter estimates used to refine alert logic and power calculations for a planned part II evaluation. CONCLUSIONS Combining EMA-SHAPS with SMA-based trend visualizations may provide an interpretable way to summarize daily anhedonia signals and generate candidate early-warning indicators. This methodological pilot will deliver feasibility, usability, and preliminary analytic parameters needed to support a subsequent controlled evaluation of the platform’s clinical utility. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT PRR1-10.2196/84024