Mental Health and Community Support Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Project Overview
Summary:
In collaboration with Hope Services, a local community center providing support for adults with developmental disabilities, I conducted research to understand the experiences and issues faced by psychologists, support staff and clients transitioning to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Problem Statement:
The COVID-19 pandemic caused many in-person mental health and psychological support services for individuals with developmental disabilities to rapidly shift to online telehealth platforms to provide services to clients remotely.
With little time to translate in-person exercises to virtual formats, it had yet to be understood what the impact of this transition was for both practitioners and their clients.
Team:
I worked with a team of 7 people, including researchers, research assistants and program managers.
Research Methods and Process
Role:
UX Researcher
Methods & Tools:
In-depth Interviews
Remote in-depth interviews were conducted with psychologists, support staff and clients of Hope Services over Zoom to gain an understanding of their experiences with either providing or receiving services over telehealth during the pandemic.
Data collected from these interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis with 4 researchers and myself evaluating the data collaboratively through Miro.
Results
Themes identified from the thematic analysis regarding experiences with transitioning to telehealth included:
Session time
Connectedness
Stress
Technical Issues
The amount of time psychologists and support staff spent with clients increased on average from 30 minutes to 1.25 hours per session after transitioning to telehealth, more than doubling the amount of time spent per client.
Technical issues, such as poor internet connectivity and lack of experience using telehealth programs prevented some clients from accessing services and increased their feelings of stress.
Although there were some issues with the transition to telehealth, overall clients, psychologists and support staff were grateful for the ability to stay connected to the organization, fellow co-workers and clients during these times.
Insights and Takeaways
The transition from providing cruicial mental health and community support services to adults with developmental disabilities in-person to online through telehealth has proven to be challenging for both providers and clients.
Large increases in session times as a result of transitioning to telehealth may lead to issues with provider caseloads and scheduling.
Technical issues are resulting in increased feelings of stress and are causing some clients to avoid using services, suggesting that technical support from the organization is necessary to ensure clients continue receiving care during the pandemic.
After the study’s completion, findings were presented to Hope Services stakeholders across the county and suggestions were provided to improve provider and client experiences with telehealth services.