Presenters
- Valerie Toro, PsyD Clinical Coordinator and Supervisor Primary Care Psychology Program Ponce Health Sciences University
- Christian W. Miranda Clinical Psychology Doctoral Student Ponce Health Sciences University
- Nydia M. Cappas
Summary
The experience of COVID-19 has no precedents. The pandemic has pushed service providers to innovate and use creativity to cover community needs. The Primary Care Psychology Program (PCPP) has been training doctoral clinical psychology students in integrated behavioral health services for more than 10 years. As a response to the need a public health need, in October 2020, PCPP started providing behavioral health services to COVID-19 patients in collaboration with a Contact Tracing Program in Puerto Rico. The services provided include tele-behavioral health screenings, telephone based follow up interventions, and referral to other mental health services. During the presentation, the presenters will discuss the roles of the behavioral health team in the Contact Tracing Program, the protocol used to provide tele-behavioral health services, and lessons learned form this novel experience. Preliminary demographic data of the patients that received the services will also be presented. In addition to the demographic data of the patients we will present preliminary results of the behavioral health screenings (PhQ-9 and GAD-7) recovered during the interventions.
Objectives
- Identify roles of behavioral health professionals in collaboration with COVID-19 Contact Tracing Programs
- Identify lessons learned and experiences that could contribute to the integration of behavioral health services with COVID-19 patients in the future
- Describe demographic characteristics of patients that received telebehavioral health services form the program
