Greta Ramaneckaite Undergraduate Dissertation 2017/18

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Disorder Assessment Tool Application using Apple's ResearchKit

Supervised by M.Villa-Uriol

Abstract

In the rise of smartphone technology, it has become more available to bring medical research to people. Long-standing research methods need to adapt to people's present approach to participating in studies. By developing tools that can be used by people in the comfort of their environment, research can be conducted more productively and become more wide-spread across the globe.

Smartphones can be used as medical research devices due to the additional features, remote accessibility, and portability. These features allow for more specific and advanced research analysis than before.

This project shows how a smartphone, with Apple's open-source framework ResearchKit, can be used as a medical research tool and collect patients' symptoms of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury disorder - one of the common mental illnesses in the youth population.

With the assistance of one of the creators of the Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Assessment Tool Janis Whitlock and the feedback obtained from the participants of the analysis of the application have proven that a smartphone is a viable medical research tool.