Date: 3- June-2021
Topic: The Effects of Online Psychological Intervention for People with Emotional Distress
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Young (Department of Social Work)
Venue: AAB301 Academic and Administrative Building, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong.
Summary
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in HK, local community residents have reported a deteriorated mental health, and a higher prevalence rate of clinical anxiety and depression. However, even though manifesting anxiety and depressive symptoms, the majority of local community residents are resistant towards traditional face-to-face mental health services for assessment and treatment due to various reasons such as local social distancing precaution measures and social stigma, which is detrimental to their mental health. In response to this service needs, an online counseling program has recently been developed. Specifically, during an 8-week treatment period, participants learned eight online modules with one module to be completed weekly at home. Additionally, participant received weekly counseling service from an experienced social worker through the telephone in text messages and/or telephone call. In this study, a qualitative research method was adopted to explore, from the perspective of the participants, the effectiveness and quality of counseling services through the telephone in text messages and/or telephone call. By using purposive sampling research design, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants by a researcher between December 2019 and January 2020. Research findings of this study provides insights on the further development of online counseling programs locally.
