Understanding Daily Changes in BDD Risk Using Smartphones

Smartphone-based Digital Phenotyping to Detect High-risk Affect States in Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is associated with high risk for suicide attempts (22-28%) and substance use disorders (49%), underscoring the importance of accurate, real-time risk detection in BDD. This study aims to use smartphone-based digital phenotyping to develop and validate unobtrusive, time-sensitive, and ecologically valid measures of key risk factors for suicide and substance misuse in BDD: negative affect states. As next steps, this research can be extended to detect risk transdiagnostically, with the goal of enabling just-in-time interventions to target suicide and substance misuse across psychiatric illnesses.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults age >=18
• Current primary diagnosis of BDD
• BDD severity >= moderate
• Living in US
• English proficiency
• Owns an Android or iOS (Apple) smartphone
• Has regular Wifi-enabled internet access for data downloads