Satisfaction degree in the using of VideoConferencing Psychotherapy in a sample of Italian psychotherapists during Covid-19 emergency

Abstract

During the last period of lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic influence, a lot of mental health professionals were able to continue working online, assisting their patients from home too. Even if there are still some doubts about videoconferencing psychotherapy (VCP), a lot of studies indicate that VCP can be feasible and clinically effective, in fact the online therapy is becoming increasingly popular, reducing distances even during the current pandemic. The aim of this study is to analyze the degree of satisfaction after using VCP in a sample of psychotherapists freely recruited through the publication on social media of a specially created questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by performing descriptive statistics to show the qualitative and quantitative composition of the sample examined. A tree classification model was created to predict the liking of the remote therapeutic intervention based on the sociodemographic characteristics, previous experiences and aspects of psychotherapeutic orientation of the therapists recruited in the study. Through a decision tree that explains which variables are related to positive responses, the following characteristics were found to predict the degree of satisfaction of the psychotherapists in using the VCP: belonging to a specific age group; having previously used VCP; and belonging to a specific psychotherapeutic orientation. According to the results, the first two important characteristics of the psychotherapists to influence the satisfaction in their use of VCP (belonging to the specific age group 45–65 and having previously used VCP) are probably a matter that can be linked to the degree of professional maturity and experience. The innovation of this research is to highlights the real impact of the distance therapy on the main therapeutic models, concluding that to have a certain level of proficiency, according the own orientation, in the use of the VCP may influence the level of satisfaction of the psychotherapists.