Access to mental health treatment is critically important during the COVID-19 crisis. PAR is here to help you navigate this challenging time. We recognize that standard assessment practices may not be possible, and we want to provide guidance on how you can use PAR products via telehealth technology while still retaining the integrity and security of the measures.
PAR follows these guidelines when developing and standardizing our assessment products:
There are three issues that must be considered if you need to modify standard practices for telehealth administration:
Distractions may be present, there may be access to various forms of assistance, and the presence of third parties—for example, test proctors or administrative supports—may be unavoidable. The accuracy of results may be influenced by the quality of the technology used, the hardware specifications needed, the speed of the internet connection, and other technical factors. Finally, a client’s cultural factors, socioeconomic background, and familiarity with computers may affect results.
Mental health professionals must describe and disclose any modifications or alterations made to the standardization procedures and to consider the impact of these differences on the reliability, validity, and interpretability of the client’s test scores.
Please be aware of the scientific literature of the assessment, have familiarity with relevant state laws and national practice standards, and abide by the guidance of APA and the American Telemedicine Association (Luxton, Pruitt, & Osenbach, 2014).
In this crisis, the changes to normal routines and practices can be stressful. Please know that PAR is working diligently to provide innovative ways to help you help those you serve. Please visit PAR’s COVID-19 web page, which is continually updated with additional resources and links.
The equivalence of paper and online administration of rating scales has been well established (Muehlhausen et al., 2015). PAR’s powerful online platform, PARiConnect, is a valuable resource with more than 70 assessment products that can be administered end-to-end online. PARiConnect can facilitate administration, scoring, and interpretation of many of PAR’s proprietary products. PARiConnect adheres to strict data security and privacy measures.