Mental Health Ubiquitous Monitoring: Detecting Context-Enriched Sociability Patterns Through Complex Event Processing

Abstract

Traditionally, the process of monitoring and evaluating social behavior related to mental health has based on self-reported information, which is limited by the subjective character of responses and by various cognitive biases. Today, however, computational methods can use ubiquitous devices to monitor social behaviors related to mental health rather than relying on self-reports. Therefore, these technologies can be used to identify the routine of social activities, which enables the recognition of abnormal behaviors that may be indicative of mental disorders. In this paper, we present a solution for detecting context-enriched sociability patterns. Specifically, we introduced an algorithm capable of recognizing the social routine of monitored people. To implement the proposed algorithm, it was used a set of Complex Event Processing (CEP) rules, which allow the continuous processing of the social data stream derived from ubiquitous devices. The experiments performed indicated that the proposed solution is capable of detecting sociability patterns similar to a batch algorithm and demonstrated that context-based recognition provides a better understanding of social routine.