TABLE 2.
Smartphone-delivered ecological momentary assessment (EMA) items.
| Item | Construct |
| To what extent was this conversation related to your/your partner’s cancer? | Cancer relatedness |
| How important was this conversation to you? | Importance |
| Predictors | |
| To what extent did you express your feelings? | Enacted disclosure |
| To what extend did you hold back from expressing your feelings? | Enacted holding back |
| To what extent did you act more positive than you felt? | Protective buffering |
| To what extent did you avoid talking about the issue? | |
| To what extent did you withhold potentially upsetting information from your partner? | |
| To what extent did you hide your worries? | |
| To what extent did you hide your anger? | |
| To what extent did you support your partner? | Supported partner |
| To what extent did you criticize your partner? | Criticized partner |
| To what extent did you understand your partner? | Understood partner |
| To what extent did you feel that your partner avoided talking about the issue? | Social constraints |
| To what extent did you feel that your partner supported you? | Perceived partner support |
| To what extent did you feel that your partner criticized you? | Perceived partner criticism |
| To what extent did you feel that your partner understood you? | Perceived partner understanding |
| Mediators | |
| How close do you feel to your partner right now? | Intimacy |
| How connected do you feel to your partner right now? | |
| How often did you have distressing thoughts about the cancer? | Intrusive thoughts |
| How often did you think about the cancer when you didn’t mean to? | |
| How often did you try to push away or avoid thoughts about the cancer? | Avoidance |
| How often did you avoid letting yourself get upset when you thought about the cancer or were reminded of it? | |
| Outcomes | |
| Dyadic Adjustment Scale item #31, posed only at the evening assessment • All things considered, what was your degree of happiness with your relationship today? (extremely unhappy, fairly unhappy, a little unhappy, happy, very happy, extremely happy, or perfectly happy; coded 0–6) |
Relationship satisfaction |
| Profile of Mood States (Cranford et al., 2006) | Distress |
| • How vigorous do you feel right now? | |
| • How anxious do you feel right now? | |
| • How worn out do you feel right now? | |
| • How angry do you feel right now? | |
| • How sad do you feel right now? | |
| • How cheerful do you feel right now? | |
| • How fatigued do you feel right now? | |
| • How on edge do you feel right now? | |
| • How annoyed do you feel right now? | |
| • How discouraged do you feel right now? | |
| • How lively do you feel right now? | |
| • How uneasy do you feel right now? | |
| • How hopeless do you feel right now? | |
| • How resentful do you feel right now? | |
| • How exhausted do you feel right now? | |
| Other/Ancillary | |
| Please rate your current level of physical pain (no pain to pain as bad as you can imagine, 0–10 scale) | Pain |
| Please rate the overall quality of your sleep last night (not all restful to extremely restful, 0–4 scale; afternoon assessment only) | Sleep quality |
| To what extent has your physical health limited your usual activities today? | Physical health limitations |
All items posed on a 1–5 scale unless otherwise noted.