Ensuring continuity of pediatric psychological assessment services during the COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and long-term implications.

Implementing alternative modes of psychological assessment entails considerable changes to traditional workflows of organizations. It also demands acceptance by both receivers and providers of the changes made and the need to demonstrate the efficacy of these changes. In this guest editorial, we describe one such pediatric psychology practice that has had to adapt to COVID-19 related national and institutional measures, making changes to its operational workflows; chief of which was to initiate the use of teleconsultation for psychological assessments. The considerations involved in these changes and measures taken to ensure the integrity of psychological assessments are also detailed. In addition, we discuss specifically the implementation of teleconsultations in a practice which previously practiced in-person only assessments, including the design of security protocols and preliminary end-user feedback from caregivers. Lastly, we reflect on how this process of re-shaping our organizational workflows for assessments led to a re-thinking of the role and essential aspects of assessments. The spurring of the evaluation of essential aspects of psychological assessments remains an ongoing process that the entire field of psychological assessment should continue in light of these times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Source: European Journal of Psychological Assessment - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research