Abstract
Daily diary and other intensive longitudinal methods are increasingly being used to investigate fluctuations in psychological and behavioral processes. To inform the development of this methodology, we sought to explore predictors of and patterns in diary compliance and behavioral reports. We used multilevel modeling to analyze data from an online daily diary study of 371 gay and bisexual men focused on sexual behavior and substance use. We found that greater education and older age as well as lower frequency of substance use were associated with higher compliance. Using polynomial and trigonometric functions, we found evidence for circaseptan patterns in compliance, sexual behavior, and substance use, as well as linear declines in compliance and behavior over time. The results suggest potential sources of non-random patterns of missing data and suggest that trigonometric terms provide a similar but more parsimonious investigation of circaseptan rhythms than do third-order polynomial terms.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1730-1743 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | AIDS and behavior |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2016 |
Funding
This project was supported by a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH087714; Jeffrey T. Parsons, Principal Investigator). H. Jonathon Rendina was supported by a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01-DA039030; H. Jonathon Rendina, Principal Investigator). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the Pillow Talk Research Team: Ruben Jimenez, Demetria Cain, Sitaji Gurung, and John Pachankis. We would also like to thank the CHEST staff, particularly those who played important roles in the implementation of the project: Chris Hietikko, Chloe Mirzayi, and Thomas Whitfield, as well as our team of recruiters and interns. Finally, we thank Chris Ryan, Daniel Nardicio and the participants who volunteered their time for this study.
Keywords
- Daily diary
- Missing data
- Multilevel modeling
- Polynomial
- Sexual behavior
- Substance use
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Infectious Diseases
