Therapists Make the Switch to Telepsychology to Safely Continue Treating Their Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Virtual Reality Telepsychology May Be Next

Abstract

Before COVID-19, most therapists had concerns about telepsychology, and only treated patients in person. During the COVID-19 lockdown, patients still needed therapy, but in-person therapy sessions became unsafe. The current study measured how many therapists are using online therapy before vs. during COVID-19, how much training they have received, and their knowledge about legal restrictions on using telepsychology. A sample of 768 U.S.A. mental health professionals completed a 29-item online survey. Results show that before COVID-19, most therapists only saw their patients in person (e.g., at the therapists office), but during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all therapists used a wide range of telecommunication technologies to communicate with their quarantined patients, including texting, telephones, video conferences, and even virtual reality. According to within-subject related samples comparisons, 39% of survey respondents used telepsychology before COVID-19, vs. 98% during COVID-19 (χ2 = 450.02, p < 0.001). Therapists reported high treatment effectiveness using telepsychology (7.45 on 0–10 scale). However, overall, on a 0–10 scale, therapists reported a significant increase in feeling burned out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mean = 3.93 (SD = 1.93) before vs. 6.22 (SD = 2.27) during the pandemic (Z = −18.57, p < 0.001). Although the APA ethics guidelines encourage therapists to use telepsychology with their patients during the crisis, gaps in respondents' knowledge identify a need for increased specialized training and education. Although the current study showed that virtual reality is rarely used by the therapists surveyed, virtual reality is a promising new telepsychology technology. Billions of dollars are currently being invested in mass producing immersive virtual reality systems. In the future, as networked immersive Virtual Reality becomes more widely available, therapists and patients in physically different locations will be able to “meet” in a shared computer-generated world designed for therapy sessions, potentially including group sessions. Telepsychology and virtual reality have the potential to be increasingly valuable tools to help therapists mitigate the consequences of COVID-19. Research, development and training is recommended.

Spanish-Speaking Therapists Increasingly Switch to Telepsychology During COVID-19: Networked Virtual Reality May Be Next

“…The survey used in the current study was adapted and translated into Spanish by Sampaio et al 1 who adapted from a 28-item survey by Glueckauf et al 17 The current survey focused on evaluating four key domains of using telehealth to deliver clinical services by Spanish-speaking professional psychologists before the COVID-19 pandemic: providers' use of telecommunication modalities; client population characteristics; professional, ethical, and legal/regulatory issues; and telehealth training and practice. Some questions were adapted to assess ''before pandemic'' versus ''during pandemic'' changes in clients' needs and therapists' attitudes and behavior toward using telepsychology to conduct therapy sessions, and five new questions were added regarding the therapists' self-ratings of burnout, use of mindfulness and VR devices, the therapists' interest in VR mindfulness for selftreatment to reduce the therapists stress levels, and how much they are volunteering telehealth support.…”

“…Although survey questionnaires are a valuable exploratory descriptive method, the use of more refined interviews and self-report measures as well as randomized controlled clinical and laboratory follow-up studies are needed to better understand the research topics addressed in the current study, and to test new treatments for reducing the psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sampaio et al 1 evaluated for the first time the psychometrics of the current survey instrument. Based on their exploratory factor analyses, they recommended that for future studies, all items and response choices of surveys should use interval or ratio scales, or at the very least, ordinal, avoiding nominal categories and particularly avoiding multiple choices questions.…”

“…T he Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic prompted mental health providers to shift treatment delivery from face-to-face to remote telehealth. The impacts of this rapid shift have been well documented in the United States [1][2][3][4] (e.g., treatment for chronic pain and psychological problems). However, much less is known about how COVID-19 has impacted the use of telepsychology in underserved Spanish-speaking countries, 5 leaving a gap in our understanding of how COVID-19 impacted Spanishspeaking treatment providers use of telepsychology.…”

Virtual Reality Group Therapy for the Treatment of Depression: A Qualitative Study on Stakeholder Perspectives

“…Since then, to mitigate the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, therapists have significantly increased their use of digitally enabled therapies to deliver treatment to their patients. This increase in the use of digitally enabled therapies and the investments in VR has made researchers predict that, soon, therapists and patients in physically different locations would use VR to "meet" in a shared computer-generated world designed for individual and group therapy sessions (Sampaio et al, 2020).…”

“…VR has the potential to connect people in a virtual environment and could be used to deliver verbal group therapies (Sampaio et al, 2020). However, there is a lack of research on the use of VR in group treatments (Watson et al, 2008).…”