Clinicians’ Attitudes Toward Telepsychology in Addiction and Mental Health Services, and Prediction of Postpandemic Telepsychology Uptake: Cross-sectional Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted an unprecedented uptake of telepsychology services; however, clinicians are mixed in their attitudes toward virtual technologies. OBJECTIVE This study explored clinician attitudes towards video, telephone, and in-person services and tested the utility of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to predict clinician intention to offer telepsychology post-pandemic. METHODS Clinician satisfaction and therapeutic alliance were compared across in-person, video, and telephone while ease of communication, technology attitudes, and intention to use post-pandemic were compared across video and telephone services in 118 addiction and mental health clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS Clinicians reported more positive attitudes toward in-person services than both virtual technologies, and more positive attitudes towards video- than telephone-based services across measures (P < .001). Based on the UTAUT, performance expectancy positively predicted concurrent intention to use video (β = 0.46, P < .001) and telephone (β = 0.35, P < .001) services in future practice. Social influence (β = 0.24, P = .004) and facilitating conditions (β = 0.19, P = .028) additionally predicted intention to use telephone. CONCLUSIONS Clinicians have more positive attitudes towards in-person than virtual technologies, with video perceived more positively than telephone; performance expectancy is a primary facilitator to uptake of both virtual modalities. Recommendations and limitations are discussed.

Healthcare professionals' perception and satisfaction with mental health tele-medicine during the COVID-19 outbreak: A real-world experience in telepsychiatry

“…The use of telepsychiatry in the COVID-19 pandemic has been scarcely discussed (3,5,33,34) with some experiences among psychologist, psychotherapists and clinicians. Professionals tend to prefer face-to-face care to telematics, although their experiences with telematic care during the COVID-19 pandemic were better than expected (35,36).…”