Skala Josie, Chavez Jacob X, Anderson Katelin, Gulrajani Chinmoy
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Minnesota Direct Care and Treatment - Forensic Services, Forensic Mental Health Program, St. Peter, Minnesota, USA.
Behav Sci Law. 2023 Sep-Oct;41(5):292-309. doi: 10.1002/bsl.2621. Epub 2023 Mar 25.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to an acceleration in the adoption of videoconferencing (VC) for conducting forensic mental health evaluations (forensic mental health assessments [FMHA]). Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, we administered a survey to 71 Minnesota-licensed forensic evaluators. Approximately two-thirds (65.7%) had started using VC for FMHA only after the pandemic, though a combined 84.5% reported performing FMHA via VC frequently at present. A striking 43.7% of respondents preferred VC for FMHA over in-person evaluation, and another 22.5% expressed no preference between modalities. Further, nearly 70% of respondents denied there were any populations for which they would never use VC to complete an FMHA. We conclude that the widespread adoption of VC for FMHA with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has induced a lasting change in the practice of FMHA. We postulate that with further advancements in technology and the development of testing instruments that can be administered online, the use of VC for FMHA will become standard practice.
新冠疫情加速了视频会议（VC）在法医精神健康评估（FMHA）中的应用。在新冠疫情爆发两年后，我们对71名明尼苏达州持证法医评估人员进行了一项调查。约三分之二（65.7%）的人仅在疫情后才开始在FMHA中使用VC，不过目前合计有84.5%的人报告称经常通过VC进行FMHA。高达43.7%的受访者在FMHA中更喜欢使用VC而非面对面评估，另有22.5%的人表示对两种方式无偏好。此外，近70%的受访者否认存在他们永远不会使用VC来完成FMHA的人群。我们得出结论，随着新冠疫情的出现，VC在FMHA中的广泛应用已在FMHA实践中引发了持久变化。我们推测，随着技术的进一步进步以及可在线实施的测试工具的开发，VC在FMHA中的应用将成为标准做法。
