Listen to Your Heart-Ecological Momentary Assessment of Interoceptive Accuracy, Awareness and Sensibility: A Pilot Study.

Background: Interoception is a multi-facetted phenomenon including interoceptive accuracy, awareness and sensibility. Deficits in interoception have been associated with psychological distress. However, little is known about the course of interoception over time. The present study aimed at examining interoception in an ecological momentary assessment (EMA)-setting. Methods: A seven-day smartphone-based EMA was conducted in a community sample of sixty-one participants (age: M = 24.1, SD = 7.00, n = 54 female (88.5%)). To control for potential practice effects of repeated assessments during the EMA phase, participants were randomly assigned to a control (n = 30) and an interoception (n = 31) group. The latter was assessed for interoceptive accuracy, awareness and sensibility. Before and after the EMA phase, all participants were assessed for interoception in the laboratory. Results: Multilevel analyses revealed significant fluctuations for all three interoceptive facets, around 50% of variance was due to within-person variability. There were only practice effects for the subscale "Attention Regulation", measuring interoceptive sensibility. Conclusion: The facets of interoception can be assessed in an EMA-setting. Repeated interoceptive assessments do not necessarily lead to an improvement of participants' interoceptive abilities. It could be shown that all interoceptive facets fluctuate, which should be considered in future research.

Do Feelings of Defeat and Entrapment Change over Time? An Investigation of the Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model of Suicidal Behaviour Using Ecological Momentary Assessments.

(1) Background. Defeat and entrapment have been highlighted as major risk factors of suicidal ideation and behavior. Nevertheless, little is known about their short-term variability and their longitudinal association in real-time. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether defeat and entrapment change over time and whether defeat predicts entrapment as stated by the integrated motivational-volitional model of suicidal behavior. (2) Methods. Healthy participants (n = 61) underwent a 7-day smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) on suicidal ideation/behavior and relevant risk factors, including defeat and entrapment and a comprehensive baseline (T0) and post (T2) assessment. (3) Results. Mean squared successive differences (MSSD) and intraclass correlations (ICC) support the temporal instability as well as within-person variability of defeat and entrapment. Multilevel analyses revealed that during EMA, defeat was positively associated with entrapment at the same measurement. However, defeat could not predict entrapment to the next measurement (approximately two hours later). (4) Conclusion. This study provides evidence on the short-term variability of defeat and entrapment highlighting that repeated measurement of defeat and entrapment-preferably in real time-is necessary in order to adequately capture the actual empirical relations of these variables and not to overlook significant within-person variability. Further research-especially within clinical samples-seems warranted.

Defeat and entrapment: more than meets the eye? Applying network analysis to estimate dimensions of highly correlated constructs.

BACKGROUND: Defeat and entrapment have been shown to be of central relevance to the development of different disorders. However, it remains unclear whether they represent two distinct constructs or one overall latent variable. One reason for the unclarity is that traditional factor analytic techniques have trouble estimating the right number of clusters in highly correlated data. In this study, we applied a novel approach based on network analysis that can deal with correlated data to establish whether defeat and entrapment are best thought of as one or multiple constructs. METHODS: Explanatory graph analysis was used to estimate the number of dimensions within the 32 items that make up the defeat and entrapment scales in two samples: an online community sample of 480 participants, and a clinical sample of 147 inpatients admitted to a psychiatric hospital after a suicidal attempt or severe suicidal crisis. Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) was used to test whether the proposed structure fits the data. RESULTS: In both samples, bootstrapped exploratory graph analysis suggested that the defeat and entrapment items belonged to different dimensions. Within the entrapment items, two separate dimensions were detected, labelled internal and external entrapment. Defeat appeared to be multifaceted only in the online sample. When comparing the CFA outcomes of the one, two, three and four factor models, the one factor model was preferred. CONCLUSIONS: Defeat and entrapment can be viewed as distinct, yet, highly associated constructs. Thus, although replication is needed, results are in line with theories differentiating between these two constructs.

["Defeated by Life" - Validation of a German Version of the Defeat Scale (DS-d)]. / "Vom Leben geschlagen" ­ Validierung der deutschen Version der Defeat Scale (DS-d).

INTRODUCTION: Defeat and entrapment are transdiagnostic constructs that play an important role in the development of depression, anxiety, suicidality and trauma-associated mental disorders. The present study aimed at presenting and validating a first German version of the Defeat-Scale (DS-d). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Through a web-based survey, N=480 participants were recruited (74% female; MAge=28.5, SDAge=11.1, Range: 18-80 years); 14.2% reported to currently suffer from a mental disorder, 8.5% reported at least one lifetime suicide attempt. All participants filled in the DS-d, the Entrapment Scale, the Rasch-based Depression Screening, the Depressive Symptoms Inventory - Suicidality Subscale, the Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised, the Childhood Trauma Screener, and the questionnaire Generalized Anxiety Disorders 2. Factorial validity was investigated through a unidimensional confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Moreover, internal consistency, convergent validity (correlations with the other measured constructs) and criterion validity (suicidality) were examined. RESULTS: One residual correlation between 2 items that are inversely coded had to be allowed to reach a satisfying fit to the unidimensional model (RMSEA=0.077, TLI=0.94, NFI=0.93, CFI=0.95; item loadings>0.56). The DS-d-sumscore correlated highly with depression (r=0.87), Entrapment (r=0.83) and suicidality (r=0.70), and moderately with the other constructs. Participants with suicidal thoughts or behavior in the past showed higher DS-d-scores than participants without suicidality. DISCUSSION: The unidimensional structure of the English version could be confirmed in the DS-d - after allowing for a residual correlation between two inversely coded items. Correlations with the other measured constructs give support for the validity of the DS-d. Criterion validity of the instrument is supported by its relations to suicidality. It remains open whether defeat and entrapment are 2 distinct constructs. In the current study - in accordance with the literature - both showed a very high intercorrelation. CONCLUSION: This study reports on the validation of a German version of the Defeat-Scale (DS-d) for the first time that shows good psychometric characteristics in terms of internal consistency and validity.