Thinking of putting together a medical research study? Now, you can make it easier for people to participate, thanks to Apple's ResearchKit.
Apple on Tuesday opened up the new research framework, designed to help doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and accurately from participants using mobile devices, to all researchers and developers. This means that medical researchers all over the world can now use ResearchKit to develop their own apps and developers can contribute new research modules to the open source framework, Cupertino said.
Launched last month, ResearchKit has already been used to develop apps studying asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson's disease. Apple said these early ResearchKit apps have already enrolled more than 60,000 iPhone users since launching in the App Store.
"We are delighted and encouraged by the response to ResearchKit from the medical and research community and the participants contributing to medical research," Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, said in a statement. "Studies that historically attracted a few hundred participants are now attracting participants in the tens of thousands. Medical researchers all over the world are actively exploring how ResearchKit can help them study even more diseases, and we believe the impact on global understanding of health and wellness will be profound."
Any medical researcher can now take advantage of the initial modules in ResearchKit. These modules cover the most common elements found in research studies — participant consent, surveys, and active tasks, Apple said.
The participant consent template can be customized to explain the details of your study, and you can even add video segments offering up more detail and/or an interactive quiz to confirm the participant's understanding. The survey module offers a pre-built user interface letting you customize questions and answers for study participants to complete.
Finally, the Active Task module lets you gather more targeted data from participants by asking them to perform activities that generate data using the iPhone's sensors. This can include tasks that measure motor activities, fitness, cognition, and voice.