Remote smartphone-based speech collection: acceptance and barriers in individuals with major depressive disorder

TL;DR

This study investigates the acceptance, facilitators, and barriers of smartphone-based speech collection among individuals with major depressive disorder, highlighting factors influencing comfort and obstacles in remote speech recording.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into user acceptance and barriers for remote speech collection in depression, informing future deployment of speech-based health monitoring tools.

Findings

Participants preferred scripted over free speech tasks.

Depression severity and country influenced comfort levels.

Notifications, low mood, and forgetfulness hinder speech recording.

Abstract

The ease of in-the-wild speech recording using smartphones has sparked considerable interest in the combined application of speech, remote measurement technology (RMT) and advanced analytics as a research and healthcare tool. For this to be realised, the acceptability of remote speech collection to the user must be established, in addition to feasibility from an analytical perspective. To understand the acceptance, facilitators, and barriers of smartphone-based speech recording, we invited 384 individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) from the Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse - Central Nervous System (RADAR-CNS) research programme in Spain and the UK to complete a survey on their experiences recording their speech. In this analysis, we demonstrate that study participants were more comfortable completing a scripted speech task than a free speech task. For both speech tasks, we found depression severity and country to be significant predictors of comfort. Not seeing smartphone notifications of the scheduled speech tasks, low mood and forgetfulness were the most commonly reported obstacles to providing speech recordings.