TIKI - the app for psychological research in everyday life
Safe, simple, and direct: The TIKI app was developed to enable renowned scientists from four Berlin universities to conduct psychological research in everyday life. With TIKI, questionnaires can be collected and merged with data from external sources, such as smartwatches. This is how we bring psychological research out of the lab and into real life.
What is TIKI?
TIKI stands for "Therapy meets AI" and is a joint research project of Charité, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität, and Psychologische Hochschule Berlin. The goal is to use artificial intelligence to find out why behavioral therapy is not helpful for some people - and how to change that. The TIKI-App was developed in this context to be able to collect information that is as objective and close to everyday life as possible. By finding out how psychotherapy works outside of the therapy session, we aim to improve the treatment of mental illness in the long term.
What can the TIKI app do?
With TIKI, active and passive digital data can be collected in a particularly secure and uncomplicated way. Active data are short questionnaires that you, as a participant in the study, can answer conveniently on your smartphone. In the process, we would like to gain insights into your mood, for example, as well as how you deal with feelings in everyday life. The TIKI-App informs you when a new questionnaire is ready and reminds you of open surveys.
Passive data refers to information from modern health sensors, such as smartwatches or fitness wristbands. These provide an unbiased insight into your health and activity, while you can go about your daily life as usual. With just a few clicks, you can connect the TIKI-App to your smartwatch and transfer data without hassle. TIKI also allows you to collect location data in a completely anonymized form. So we never know where you are, but we can track how many different places you've been during a day - a potentially important indicator of mental well-being.
Encrypted and Secure
TIKI was developed specifically for psychological research. The collection of your data is therefore completely transparent and is purely for the purpose of gaining new scientific knowledge. At the same time, we attach great importance to the protection of your personal data: information from questionnaires as well as from your smartwatch is always transmitted in encrypted form and stored in a pseudonymized form on secure servers in Germany.
FAQ
How can I participate in TIKI?
For the TIKI-Study, we are looking for people who suffer from one of the following disorders:
Specific phobia
Social anxiety disorder
Panic disorder
Agoraphobia
Generalized anxiety disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Unipolar depressive disorder
As a study participant, you will receive psychotherapeutic treatment at one of our four study centers in Berlin. If you are interested, please contact us at tiki-studie.psychologie@hu-berlin.de
Who is behind the TIKI app?
TIKI was developed by mHealth Pioneers GmbH (Thryve) in collaboration with scientists at Freie Universität Berlin.
The mHealth Pioneers GmbH is a leading technological service provider in the health sector and cooperates with well-known research institutes and health insurance companies (e.g. Robert Koch Institute).
The project is implemented by the Clinical-Psychological Intervention Group, which is part of the Department of Education and Psychology at Freie Universität Berlin. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Christine Knaevelsrud, the working group has many years of expertise in the development and evaluation of digital psychological diagnostic and treatment methods.
Who do I contact with questions about the TIKI app?
You can reach us via e-mail: tiki-alltag@ewi-psy.fu-berlin.de
or via phone: 030 - 838 - 62379
How is the security of my data ensured?
The data collection in TIKI is completely pseudonymized: Thus, when you register, a pseudonym is generated, which the TIKI study team can use to link the data from the TIKI-App with your other study data. The operators of the app (mHealth Pioneers GmbH), on the other hand, do not know who you are at any time.
As an additional protection, you will receive a PIN in addition to the pseudonym when you log in to the app. We ask you to keep both the pseudonym and the PIN safe (e.g. via a password manager).
The transmission of your data from the TIKI-App to the study servers is done with TLS/SSL encryption. The server is hosted in the Open Telecom Cloud ("OTC") of German Telekom. The OTC servers are located in Germany and have been externally audited and certified several times with regard to quality management and security.