Mobility, well-being, and community participation among people with depression: an observation study using geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA)

Information on the mobility and daily routines of persons with depression remains limited. Our goal was to describe a preliminary explication of the relationship between mobility, well-being, and community participation of people with depression, and the relationship between mobility and environmental measures on well-being. We used a multivariate, time-series, single-subject, repeated measures design. People with depression (N=33) used a GPS device two weeks for mobility tracking, and the records were extracted from Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Logistic regression of mobility and environmental measures on well-being outcomes were adjusted for age and sex. The correlation coefficients showed that the more hours participants (N=32) stayed at home, the more often they had depressive symptoms, their satisfaction with life was still higher. Participants with longer total distance reported more stress. The fewer destinations participants travelled to, the more depressive symptoms they had. Time spent outside home was also negatively associated with satisfaction with life and self-esteem. Our work showed that depressive symptoms may limit people’s willingness to move outside home although the pattern is not clear. More studies should be conducted to verify our assumption with a larger sample size.

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