J Psychiatr Pract. 2023 Sep 1;29(5):367-372. doi: 10.1097/PRA.0000000000000727.
Patient clinical collateral information is critical for providing psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care. With the shift to primarily virtual care triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, psychotherapists may have received less clinical information than they did when they were providing in-person care. This study assesses whether the shift to virtual care had an impact on therapists' use of patients' electronic and social media to augment clinical information that may inform psychotherapy.
In 2018, we conducted a survey of a cohort of psychotherapists affiliated with McLean Hospital. We then reapproached the same cohort of providers for the current study, gathering survey responses from August 10, 2020, to September 1, 2020, for this analysis. We asked clinicians whether they viewed patients' electronic and social media in the context of their psychotherapeutic relationship, what they viewed, how much they viewed it, and their attitudes about doing so.
Of the 99 respondents, 64 (64.6%) had viewed at least 1 patient's social media and 8 (8.1%) had viewed a patient's electronic media. Of those who reported viewing patients' media, 70 (97.2%) indicated they believed this information helped them provide more effective treatment. Compared with the 2018 prepandemic data, there were significantly more clinicians with>10 years of experience reporting media use in therapy. There was also a significant increase during the pandemic in the viewing of media of adult patients and a trend toward an increase in viewing of media of older adult patients.
Review of patients' electronic and social media in therapy became more common among clinicians at a large psychiatric teaching hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings support continuing research about how reviewing patients' media can inform and improve clinical care.
患者临床相关信息对于提供精神科和心理治疗护理至关重要。随着 COVID-19 大流行引发的主要虚拟护理的转变，心理治疗师可能收到的临床信息比他们提供面对面护理时要少。本研究评估了向虚拟护理的转变是否对治疗师使用患者的电子和社交媒体来补充可能影响心理治疗的临床信息产生了影响。
2018 年，我们对麦克莱恩医院附属的一组心理治疗师进行了调查。然后，我们为当前的研究再次联系了同一组提供者，从 2020 年 8 月 10 日至 2020 年 9 月 1 日收集调查回复，用于本分析。我们询问临床医生他们是否在心理治疗关系的背景下查看患者的电子和社交媒体，他们查看了什么，查看了多少，以及他们对此的态度。
在 99 名回复者中，有 64 名（64.6%）至少查看过 1 名患者的社交媒体，有 8 名（8.1%）查看过患者的电子媒体。在报告查看患者媒体的人中，有 70 人（97.2%）表示他们认为这些信息有助于他们提供更有效的治疗。与 2018 年大流行前的数据相比，有更多具有>10 年经验的临床医生报告在治疗中使用媒体。在大流行期间，查看成年患者媒体的人数明显增加，查看老年患者媒体的人数也呈上升趋势。
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，一家大型精神病教学医院的临床医生在治疗中越来越频繁地查看患者的电子和社交媒体。这些发现支持继续研究查看患者媒体如何为临床护理提供信息和改进。
