Authors (including presenting author) :
Au WL(1), Chu ZLC(1), Cho VW(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Department of Clinical Psychology, Caritas Medical Centre
Introduction :
With the rising demand of psychological services, the Stepped Care Model has been practiced by different organizations in Hong Kong. The model is also being adopted within the Hospital Authority (HA), starting from 2012. Psychology assistants play a crucial role in this model, providing screening and low-intensity psychological interventions such as psychoeducation and stress management skill training to improve access to psychological services. While the model being found to increase the overall effectiveness of psychological services, few studies have focused specifically on the role of psychology assistants. With their established role within the HA, the current study aims to investigate the contributions of psychology assistants concerning changes in psychological treatment outcomes and access to psychology services.
Objectives :
1.To evaluate the impact of low intensity psychological interventions delivered by psychology assistants (PAs) on self-reported psychological symptom improvement in patients attending clinical psychology services
2.To determine whether the involvement of PAs affects overall psychological service efficiency
Methodology :
Data from patients utilizing clinical psychology services in the Caritas Medical Centre since 2017 were collected for analysis. The data were categorized into two groups based on whether patients attended PA sessions in addition to regular clinical psychology (CP) sessions. Analysis were conducted by comparing the changes in outcome measure scores between the two groups. The outcome measures included the Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item depression scale (PHQ-9), 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (GDS-S) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21).
Result & Outcome :
Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in the changes in outcome measure scores between the two groups for the PHQ-9, DASS-21, and GDS-S. Patients attending PA sessions demonstrated a greater reduction in self-reported scores. Additionally, further analysis indicated no significant difference in the total number of CP sessions between the two groups of patients who completed the PHQ-9 and DASS-21.
The findings of the study suggest that integrating psychology assistants into clinical psychology services can enhance effectiveness, as evidenced by improvements in patients’ self-reported outcome measure scores, without increasing the treatment time required by CPs. This enables CPs to focus on more complicated cases. In conclusion, psychology assistants can improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of clinical psychology services.
