Smartphone language features may help identify adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae and their trajectories

Language features may reflect underlying cognitive and emotional processes following a traumatic event that portend clinical outcomes. The authors sought to determine whether language features from usual smartphone use were markers associated with concurrent posttraumatic symptoms and worsening or improving posttraumatic symptoms over time following a traumatic exposure. This investigation was a secondary analysis of the Advancing Understanding of RecOvery afteR traumA study, a longitudinal study of traumatic outcomes among survivors recruited from 33 emergency departments across the United States. Adverse posttraumatic sequelae were assessed over the six months following the initial traumatic exposure. Language features were extracted from usual smartphone use in a specialized app. Bivariate linear mixed models were used to identify and validate language features that are markers associated with posttraumatic symptoms. Participants were 1744 trauma survivors, with a mean age of 39 [SD = 13] years old, and 56% were female. Fourteen language features were associated with severity level of posttraumatic symptoms at specific timepoints (cross-sectional markers) and five features were associated with change in severity level of posttraumatic symptoms (longitudinal markers). References to the body and health or illness were predictive of worsening pain, somatic, and thinking/concentration/fatigue symptom severity over time. An increase in references to others was associated with improvement in somatic symptom severity over time and increases in expressions of causation or cognitive processes were associated with improvement in pain symptom severity over time. Language features derived from usual smartphone use can convey important information about health, functioning, and recovery following a traumatic event. Clinicians might utilize such information to determine who may experience a high symptom burden or risk of worsening posttraumatic symptoms.

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Publication Details

Journal
NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Published
2025-05-20
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44277-025-00028-x
Primary Topic
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Smartphone language features may help identify adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae and their trajectories

Brittany E. Punches, Christopher Lewandowski, Donglin Zeng, Claire Pearson et al.
NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
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Smartphone language features may help identify adverse post-traumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae and their trajectories

Brittany E. Punches, Christopher Lewandowski, Donglin Zeng, Claire Pearson, Kenneth A. Bollen, Paulina Sergot, Steven E. Harte, Tanja Jovanović, Scott L. Rauch, Jennifer Strafford Stevens, Laura Thi Germine, John P. Haran, Stacey L. House, Salvatore Giorgi, Phyllis L. Hendry, Robert M. Domeier, Mochuan Liu, Mark John Seamon, José L. Pascual, Erica Harris, Jennifer Pierce, Lyle Ungar, Gari D. Clifford, Thomas C. Neylan, Samuel A. McLean, Steven E. Bruce, Alan B. Storrow, Yinyao Ji, Sarah D. Linnstaedt, Lauren A. Hudak, Meredith A. Bucher, Roland C. Merchant, Paul I. Musey, Francesca L. Beaudoin, Sophia Sheikh, David A. Peak, Zhaopeng Xing, Lisa M. Vizer, León D. Sánchez, Xinming An, Christopher W. Jones, Karestan C. Koenen, Brian J. O’Neil, Ronald C. Kessler
article en

Abstract

Language features may reflect underlying cognitive and emotional processes following a traumatic event that portend clinical outcomes. The authors sought to determine whether language features from usual smartphone use were markers associated with concurrent posttraumatic symptoms and worsening or improving posttraumatic symptoms over time following a traumatic exposure. This investigation was a secondary analysis of the Advancing Understanding of RecOvery afteR traumA study, a longitudinal study of traumatic outcomes among survivors recruited from 33 emergency departments across the United States. Adverse posttraumatic sequelae were assessed over the six months following the initial traumatic exposure. Language features were extracted from usual smartphone use in a specialized app. Bivariate linear mixed models were used to identify and validate language features that are markers associated with posttraumatic symptoms. Participants were 1744 trauma survivors, with a mean age of 39 [SD = 13] years old, and 56% were female. Fourteen language features were associated with severity level of posttraumatic symptoms at specific timepoints (cross-sectional markers) and five features were associated with change in severity level of posttraumatic symptoms (longitudinal markers). References to the body and health or illness were predictive of worsening pain, somatic, and thinking/concentration/fatigue symptom severity over time. An increase in references to others was associated with improvement in somatic symptom severity over time and increases in expressions of causation or cognitive processes were associated with improvement in pain symptom severity over time. Language features derived from usual smartphone use can convey important information about health, functioning, and recovery following a traumatic event. Clinicians might utilize such information to determine who may experience a high symptom burden or risk of worsening posttraumatic symptoms.

NPP—Digital Psychiatry and NeuroscienceVol. 3(1)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US), Brigham and Women's Hospital (US), Trinity Health (US), Georgia Institute of Technology (US), University City Science Center (US), Harvard University (US), Emory University (US), Henry Ford Health System (US), University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US), University of California, San Francisco (US), Wayne State University (US), Washington University in St. Louis (US), University of Missouri–St. Louis (US), Brown University (US), University of Michigan (US), McLean Hospital (US), Detroit Receiving Hospital (US), Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital (US), Jacksonville University (US), Massachusetts General Hospital (US), Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (US), Michigan Medicine (US), Community Voices Heard (US), St. John Hospital & Medical Center (US), The University of Texas Health Science Center (US), Indiana University School of Medicine, The Ohio State University (US), Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (US), University of Pennsylvania (US), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (US), Philadelphia University (US), Florida College (US)
Verily Life Sciences, One Mind, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, Medical Research and Materiel Command
Quality Education
Openalex Percentile: Top 85%
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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