Changing face-to-face psychological care to remote mode: facilitators and obstacles in the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVE: to verify associations between sociodemographic variables and factors that facilitate and hinder the transition from face-to-face psychological care to remote mode in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: this is an analytical, quantitative, cross-sectional study. After approval by the Research Ethics Committee, data collection was performed by applying an online form consisting of 55 questions. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics techniques. RESULTS: the intentional sampling consisted of a total of 385 Brazilian psychologists, mostly women (67.01%), young professionals with up to five years of graduation (44.16%) most of activities in the private clinic. It was found that training time between five and 10 years was associated with a greater perception of difficulties and that previous experience with remote care facilitated adaptation in the transition from one modality to another. CONCLUSION: considering that call center can be a powerful tool in the health scenario, it is suggested the inclusion of remote care issues in the research agenda and syllabus in the curricula of health training courses.