Noa van Zwieten is a PhD candidate at the psychiatry department of Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc. She graduated from the Research Master Clinical and Health Psychology at Leiden University (cum laude). Her interest lies in the development of mental disorders, with a particular focus on the differences that emerge between individuals and over time. Within the Stress in Action project she focusses on comparing the emotional, biological, behavioral and cognitive dimensions of daily-life stress between persons with and without mental disorders to understand the crucial aspects that contribute to mental disorder development.

“Can 2-week ambulatory data on physical activity and on negative and positive affect discriminate persons with different psychiatric status (yes versus not having a depressive and/or anxiety disorder)?”

This study is using data from the NESDA cohort to explore the temporal associations between actigraphy-assessed physical activity and EMA-assessed positive and negative affect in a sample comprised of individuals with depressive and/or anxiety disorders diagnosis, subthreshold depressive and/or anxiety symptoms, and asymptomatic individuals. The first aim is to examine how these associations differ between persons with current disorders, subthreshold disorders and asymptomatic individuals, using a confirmatory subgroup approach. The secondary aim is to identify data-driven subgroups based on similar patterns of within-person associations over time. Data-driven subgroups are compared to the confirmatory subgroups and each another regarding patient, sociodemographic, psychiatric clinical and daily characteristics.

PhD student,
Amsterdam UMC