Psychological support and psychotherapy via digital devices in Covid-19 emergency time: Some critical issues
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting fear, quarantine and lockdown measures implemented in Italy and other countries to contain the risk of contagion have seriously impacted the mental health of a large number of people. The need to offer psychological and psychotherapeutic support to these people, while respecting the government’s pressing calls to “stay home”, have led many psychologists and psychotherapists, both in the public and private sectors, to provide their professional services via teleconference, telephone, smartphone, etc. The aim of this work is to highlight some critical issues related to the sudden switch from the traditional method of providing psychological services to the digital one in Italy.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Further risks of telemental health include loss of privacy and deterioration in therapeutic relationships.
“Further risks include the loss of privacy and deterioration in therapeutic relationships [1,10-12].”
From Implementation of Telemental Health Services Before COVID-19: Rapid Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
Staff participation in telemental health is impeded by technological and environmental difficulties, and staff express reservations regarding quality of assessments, deterioration of therapeutic relationships, and limited focus on physical as well as mental health.
“Staff participation is also impeded by technological and environmental difficulties, and they express reservations regarding the quality of assessments, deterioration of therapeutic relationships, and limitations in the extent to which there is a focus on physical as well as mental health [8,11,12].”
From Implementation of Telemental Health Services Before COVID-19: Rapid Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
Cites
Wang, C., Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., Ho, C. S., & Ho, R. C. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17051729 · Cited by 9,923 · see citing works
Barak, A., Hen, L., Boniel-Nissim, M., & Shapira, N. (2008) · Journal of Technology in Human Services · doi:10.1080/15228830802094429 · Cited by 1,283 · see citing works
The COVID-19 pandemic: the ‘black swan’for mental health care and a turning point for e-health
Wind, T. R., Rijkeboer, M., Andersson, G., & Riper, H. (2020) · Internet Interventions · doi:10.1016/j.invent.2020.100317 · Cited by 782 · see citing works
The COVID-19 pandemic and mental health impacts
Usher, K., Durkin, J., & Bhullar, N. (2020) · International Journal of Mental Health Nursing · doi:10.1111/inm.12726 · Cited by 674 · see citing works
Berger, T. (2017) · Psychotherapy Research · doi:10.1080/10503307.2015.1119908 · Cited by 364 · see citing works
Ethical Issues in Online Psychotherapy: A Narrative Review
Stoll, J., Müller, J. A., & Trachsel, M. (2020) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00993 · Cited by 340 · cited 2× · see citing works
“In the current emergency, effective and ethical psychological support or online psychotherapy requires psychologists and therapists adequately trained both in clinical and therapeutic skills and in use of digital devices.(9,10) In Italy, the digital divide phenomenon concerns both potential online assistance users (pe…”
BackgroundPublic Mental Health Crisis during COVID-19 Pandemic, China
Dong, L., & Bouey, J. Z. H. (2020) · Emerging infectious diseases · doi:10.3201/eid2607.202407 · Cited by 204 · see citing works
Global Preparedness Against COVID-19: We Must Leverage the Power of Digital Health
Mahmood, S., Hasan, K., Carras, M. C., & Labrique, A. B. (2020) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/18980 · Cited by 201 · see citing works
Letter to the editor: Headline stress disorder caused by Netnews during the outbreak of COVID‐19
Dong, M., & Zheng, J. (2020) · Health Expectations · doi:10.1111/hex.13055 · Cited by 163 · see citing works
Digital mental health apps and the therapeutic alliance: initial review
Henson, P., Wisniewski, H., Hollis, C., Keshavan, M., & Torous, J. (2019) · BJPsych Open · doi:10.1192/bjo.2018.86 · Cited by 152 · see citing works
Kaplan & Sadock's Concise Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry
Sadock, B. J., Sadock, V. A., & Ruiz, P. J. (2016) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 146 · see citing works
A Viewpoint From Paris on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Corruble, E. (2020) · The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry · doi:10.4088/jcp.20com13361 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Hwang, A., Yen, C.-F., Liao, H., Chi, W., Liou, T., Chang, B.-S., Wu, T., Kang, L.-J., Lu, S.-J., Simeonsson, R. J., et al. (2020) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph17176134 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Mejia, C. R., Tovani‐Palone, M. R., Ticona, D., et al. (2020) · Electronic Journal of General Medicine · doi:10.29333/ejgm/7946 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Guidelines and Current Assessment of Health Care Responsibility in Italy
Zerbo, S., Malta, G., & Argo, A. (2020) · Risk Management and Healthcare Policy · doi:10.2147/rmhp.s238353 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Barnett, P., Goulding, L., Casetta, C., Jordan, H., Sheridan-Rains, L., Steare, T., Williams, J., Wood, L., Gaughran, F., & Johnson, S. (2021) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/26492 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
- Authors
- Tullio, V., Perrone, G., Bilotta, C., Lanzarone, A., & Argo, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Palermo (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Tullio, Valeria
- Venue
- Medico-Legal Journal
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-06-03
- Volume
- 88
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 73-76
- ISSN
- 0025-8172 (ISSN-L)
- 2042-1834
- OpenAlex
- W3029766928
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 15
- FWCI
- 5.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Medico-Legal Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Nova Science Publishers (Nova Science Publishers, Inc.) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, external beam radiotherapy, digital mental health services, psychological support, psychotherapy, lockdown, quarantine, mental health outcomes, teleconsultation, Italy
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Confidentiality, Humans, Informed Consent, Italy, Mental Health Services, Pneumonia, Viral, Quarantine, Computer Security, Telemedicine, Coronavirus Infections, Pandemics
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
