Clinical Sexologists’ Perceptions of the Potentials, Downfalls, and Best Practices for Digitally Delivered Therapy: A Lesson from Lockdown Due to COVID-19 in Portugal

Abstract

Professionals who work in clinical sexology intervene in situations related to mental health, such as sexual dysfunctions and marital conflicts, often with vulnerable populations, e.g., people with chronic illnesses or trans people. In this work, we wanted to understand the perceptions these professionals have about using Internet interventions and how they perceive—based on their COVID-related experience and the reflections it brought about non-face-to-face interventions—the use of online interventions. During the first lockdown due to COVID-19 in Portugal, we used an online survey and collected answers from 39 Portuguese sexual health professionals to open questions about the use of Internet interventions. The data were analyzed following the summative content analysis procedures. Our results showed that sexual health professionals had several difficulties in clinical practice during the lockdown period, such as the perception that sexuality moved to the backseat in people’s lives. Even so, they stated that Internet interventions have several advantages, such as easy accessibility and excellent promotion of social justice. However, disadvantages were also pointed out. The current study allowed us to understand clinicians’ perception of the impact of the pandemic on sexual healthcare access and brought recommendations for good practice of sexual medicine with e-health.

Keywords

• e-health
• clinical sexology
• sexual medicine
• Internet intervention
• content analysis
• COVID-19