Remote video interface psychological assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences of consultants and clients

Abstract

The need for remote psychological assessment came to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. This paper examines the qualitative experiences of psychologists and patients using remote video interfaces for psychological assessment during that period. The aim was to gain qualitative data on the personal experiences of both parties and explore whether remote assessment via video interface is a satisfactory method for psychological evaluations. Patients were seen for psychological assessments by consultant Clinical and Counselling Psychologists via through videoconference. Consultants and patients were asked about their experience of the video assessment and the consultant recorded their responses. Content Analysis was used to analyse the responses. The remote mode of assessment was found to be satisfactory to both patient and psychologist, although technical issues were highlighted to be the most disruptive to assessments. Consultants reported a certain level of fatigue, particularly after evaluations, and some of them commented that they had to try harder than in a face-to-face evaluation. Distraction in the patient environment was considered detrimental. The small sample size which requires further replication studies. Overall, the use of videoconference was found to be a satisfactory method for psychological assessment with some areas for improvement, such as technical difficulties and fatigue.