Telephone-based psychological care during the 2020 lockdown in Spain and protocol for data collection

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, the General Council of Psychology in Spain, together with the regional Official Colleges of Psychology, launched the Psychological Care Telephone Program (PCTP) to provide mental health services to the population. Method: The aim of the present study was to perform a descriptive analysis of the PCTP by analysing the data collected during the lockdown and at the 12-month follow-up, and to develop a brief protocol designed to standardise data collection procedures. Results: A total of 10,119 inbound telephone calls were made to the PCTP from March to May 2020, and 337 follow-up calls at 12 months. The most common reasons for contacting the PCTP were to consult for symptoms of anxiety (66.8%), depression (30.5%), and/or family problems (13.9%). At the 12-month follow-up, many users experienced anxiety (38%), depressive (35%), and panic (34%) symptoms. More than half of users reported using psychopharmacological medicines. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the need to offer the population telephonebased mental health consultations during times of crisis. It also shows the importance of systematising intervention and data collection procedures for future crises. We propose a data collection protocol for use with emergency telephone psychological assistance programmes.