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. 2023 Sep 1;29(5):367-372.
doi: 10.1097/PRA.0000000000000727.

Digital Collateral Information Through Electronic and Social Media in Psychotherapy: Comparing Clinician-reported Trends Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ipsit V Vahia, Rachel N Sava, Hailey V Cray, Heejung J Kim, Rebecca A Dickinson, Kerry J Ressler, Ana F Trueba

Digital Collateral Information Through Electronic and Social Media in Psychotherapy: Comparing Clinician-reported Trends Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ipsit V Vahia et al. J Psychiatr Pract. .

Abstract

Background: 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.

Methods: 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.

Results: 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.

Conclusions: 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.

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Conflict of interest statement

K.J.R. has performed scientific consultation for Bioxcel, Bionomics, Acer, Takeda, and Jazz Pharma and serves on Scientific Advisory Boards for Sage and the Brain Research Foundation; he has received sponsored research support from Takeda, Brainsway, and Alto Neuroscience. None of this work is related to the current study. I.V.V. receives current research support from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Once Upon a Time Foundation, and the Harvard Dean’s Initiative on Aging. K.J.R. was previously an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and receives current research support from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Once Upon a Time Foundation. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Types of media content viewed by clinicians both before and during the pandemic, as shown by percentage of positive (“yes”) responses.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Comparison of clinician’s years of experience and use of electronic or social media content pre-pandemic and during the pandemic, as seen in percentage of positive (“yes”) responses. * Indicates statistical significance in the comparison of groups. The comparisons that achieved this reflect a significant decrease among clinicians with fewer than 10 years of experience, but an overall significant increase across the entire sample.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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