doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1485
Article
Measurement indicator to psychology online in Latin American in pandemic times
Indicador de Medición en Psicología online en América Latina en tiempos de pandemia
Carlos Andrés Trejos-Gil1
Huber Yesid Castro Escobar1
Omar Augusto Amador Sánchez1
1Luis Amigó Catholic University. Colombia
Abstract
Introduction: In the areas of technology and virtualization from provide online services in pandemic times there is a possibility psychology online acquiring services thinking that web sites are confidence for users and good quality. This paper proposes a number of indicators to websites evaluation that provide online services psychology in Latin American.
Methodology: Whit experimental methodology were tracked 144 websites online services psychology assessing objectives variables with the purpose of factor analysis to the indicators building.
Results: According the proposed indicators Brazil (X=2.00) is identified that scored best indicator, followed by Argentina (X=2.5), Chile (X=2.67) y Colombia (X=3.5); Integra Medical (Chile) (IMPOL=0.4629) get the better calification in Latin America,
Discussion: Despite the pandemics conditions of the world actually, latent need the persons to access psychology online therapy, the web site aspects lacking to web quality with safety, accessibility and web positioning.
Conclusions: Measurement indicator to psychology online (MIPOL) is a tool that permit to evaluate websites this category and detected strengths and weaknesses each web sites.
Keywords: psychology, epidemic, factor analysis, Latin America, electronic commerce, security, information accessibility.
Resumen
Introducción: En ámbitos de tecnología, virtualización y digitalización se brindan ciberespacios de oferta y demanda de servicios vía online; uno de ellos en tiempos de pandemia, es la posibilidad de adquirir servicios de psicología vía online, asumiendo a priori que estos sitios web son de confianza para los usuarios y de buena calidad. Este trabajo propone ciertos indicadores para evaluar los sitios web que prestan el servicio de psicología online en América latina.
Metodología: Bajo un diseño metodológico experimental se analizó 144 sitios web de psicología online evaluando variables objetivas para someterlas a un análisis factorial con el propósito de la construcción de indicadores.
Resultados: Según los indicadores propuestos se identifica a Brasil (X=2.00) como el país que mejor índices arrojó, seguido de Argentina (X=2.5), Chile (X=2.67) y Colombia (X=3.5); Integra Médica (Chile) (IMPOL=0.4629) es la URL de psicología online que mejor calificación obtuvo en América Latina.
Discusión: A pesar de las condiciones pandémicas que atraviesa el mundo actualmente, y la latente necesidad de las personas para acceder a terapias psicológicas online, los sitios web carecen de varios aspectos de calidad web como seguridad, accesibilidad y posicionamiento web.
Conclusiones: El Indicador de Medición de Psicología Online (IMPOL) es una herramienta que permite evaluar a los sitios web de esta categoría y detectar fortalezas y debilidades de cada sitio que brinda psicología online en tiempos de pandemia.
Palabras clave: psicología, epidemia, análisis factorial, América latina, comercio electrónico, seguridad, accesibilidad a la información factorial, América latina, comercio electrónico, seguridad, accesibilidad a la información.
Content
1. Introduction. 2. Methodology. 2.1. Participants. 2.2. Survey instrument. 2.3. Procedure. 2.4. Statistical analysis. 3. Results. 3.1. Online Psychology Measurement Indicator. 4. Discussion. 5. Conclusions. 6. Bibliography 7. Curriculum Vitae.
Correspondence
Carlos Andrés Trejos-Gil. Luis Amigó Catholic University. Colombia. carlos.trejosgi@amigo.edu.co
Huber Yesid Castro Escobar. Luis Amigó Catholic University. Colombia. huber.castroes@amigo.edu.co
Omar Augusto Amador Sánchez. Luis Amigó Catholic University. Colombia. omar.amadorsa@amigo.edu.co
Received: 31/05/2020.
Accepted: 08/09/2020.
Published: 30/10/2020.
How to cite this article / Standard reference
Trejos-Gil, C. A., Castro-Escobar, H., & Amador S. (2020). Measurement indicator to psychology online in Latin American in pandemic times. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 78, 457-476. https://www.doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1485
Translation by Paula González (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Venezuela).
1. Introduction
Within the framework of science that studies all those mental processes, human capacities, perceptions, and behaviors of the being from an analytical discipline such as psychology, which in other words studies mental activity basically from the behavioral, affective, and cognitive perspectives, different sociocultural phenomena are presented that in one way or another allow the traditional ways of exercising science to change, in this case, over the traditional forms of psychological service in which people personally access therapies, and who face less time to have their personal appointments with their preferred psychologist.
The resounding advance of technology that unfailingly invades any area of knowledge, in recent times there are different aspects of science and specifically the study of the mind and its psychic processes; each time with greater validity that is impregnated by devices, tools, and means that facilitate contact and improve the dynamics that psychology has in the middle of its therapeutic procedures. Currently, there are e-Health services (Bouzas-Lorenzo & Mahou, 2013 and Pan American Health Organization, 2016; Sanmartín, Ávila, Vilora & Jabba, 2016) health services mediated by the internet, also known as telehealth or telemedicine due to the use of technologies, videoconferences, e-mail, and Smartphone apps, to support remote health services (Yang & Zhang, 2019; Zhou et al., 2020), these are the preferred mechanisms for coping with social distancing to obtain psychological sessions at a distance.
Psychology is not alien to the adaptation of new therapeutic exercises mediated by the web, where "the use of the mass media to disseminate psychology has led to ambivalent consequences for this discipline" (Arana, Meilán, & Pérez, 2006 ); It is for this reason that the concern lies in this research, about the analysis of the provision of psychological virtual services, shortening distances, minimizing barriers, even minimizing sales prices, facilitating tasks and activities of users (Echeburúa & de Corral, 2010) allowing access effectively and dynamically to practice psychology to a public eager for this service, taking into account public health phenomena such as the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and the new forms of interaction in new online communities (Castells, 2009), and that the use of these technologies in modern society does not cause an opposite effect, turning them into an end and not a means (Espinar, Zych, & Rodríguez-Hidalgo, 2015).
A study carried out by We Are Social not only shows the quantitative use of the internet, but also the great possibility of generating an offer of services to as many audiences willing to pay for it, although quality levels may be affected, because although the growth in the offer of psychological services through the web is not questioned, the use of the fixed telephone at first and then the mobile phone, became ideal tools to provide e-Psychology services (Baena, Quesada & Vogt, 2008); later this exercise ventured through the web, taking into account the internet as a means to share experiences and communicate with others (Ortega Ruíz, Del Rey, & Sánchez, 2012). At present, virtual reality and augmented reality have even been implemented as a simulation of situations for therapeutic exercises (Soto & Gómez, 2018; Baena, Quesada & Vogt, 2008, and Brown, 1998) in the field of e-psychology or telemedicine, thus video calls have mediated therapeutic exercises and reduce social isolation and loneliness during the current crisis, especially in older adults (Noone et al., 2020); Similarly, in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, studies reveal artificial intelligence (AI) as effective tools in intervention programs in psychological crises, likewise online mental health services facilitate emergency interventions and improve their quality in the current epidemic (Liu, et al., 2020).
Psychology professionals cannot be oblivious to technological advances beyond knowing their profession, and if they want to offer their services through cyberspace (Domínguez, 2007), they must bear in mind peripheral aspects of their profession such as, "organization, integrity, remuneration, and flexibility” (Helou et al., 2020); Besides, they must have knowledge in “Technological supports for document management; management of web content on social networks; semantic web for value-added products, and business possibilities with information processing." (Morato, Sánchez & Fernández, 2015); and also, strengthen their competencies called “Technological interest” and “e-Psychology” as the use of ICT to get in touch with their patients (Brown, 1998; Charria, Sarsosa, & Arenas, 2011).
This research aims to make a diagnosis on the offer of psychological services mediated by the Internet in Latin America; what characteristics do these platforms that offer such a service have; what patterns of web structure do they have, and if there is a way to measure and characterize these web platforms. There is a variety of methodologies to analyze the web (Hernández & Fransi, 2014; Codina, et al., 2014; Rodríguez-Martínez, Codina, & Pedraza-Jiménez, 2010, and Freixa, Soler-Adillon, Sora & Ribas, 2014) and that are relevant to this particular study. First of all, these studies refer to the analysis of cyber-media and other studies speak of meta-media, but for this study, the term cyber-media is the most appropriate.
The SAAC system by Codina et al. (2014) illustrates employing two sets (Set of Terms and Set of Phases, Activities, and Results) a system to study digital media, articulating the first set consisting of 12 Terms with the second set consisting of 4 Phases, 11 Activities, and the Results for each Phase; The interesting thing about this methodology is that it is open and free to be applied to any cybermedia with the variables that the researcher considers pertinent. On the other hand, there is the study by Rodríguez-Martínez, Codina, and Pedraza-Jiménez (2010) on Cybermedia and Web 2.0 to determine their quality concerning 3 indicators (General, Specific Internal, and Specific External) in terms of accessibility (Valdés, 2013; Conesa, Aguinaga, Hernández, 2011, and Voces-Merayo, 2007), visibility and popularity, access to information (Cristobal-Fransi & Marimon-Viadiu, 2010; Vázquez-Casielles, Rio-Lanza & Suárez-Álvarez, 2009) of 3 categories and technologies that facilitate social communication.
However, Hernández and Fransi (2014) describe with their 4 dimensions a method of evaluating quality in cybermedia; dimensions such as efficiency (Petnji, Marimon & Casadesús, 2012), system availability, reliability and privacy (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Malhotra, 2005, and Vázquez-Casielles, Rio-Lanza & Suárez-Álvarez, 2009), and interaction, characteristics that make a complete evaluation from each of their own variables. This study and those mentioned above together complement the cybermedia analysis methodology in the provision of services in online psychology in a complete, global, and systemic way as intended.
On the other hand, the measurement of websites has been extensively researched without yet generating a practical model or a construct in terms of quality that generally allows websites to be evaluated under the same parameter or instrument (González, Bañegil & Buenadicha, 2013); Studies such as that of Rappa (2005) propose that different types of websites exist, establishing 9 categories: brokerage, advertising, infomediary, merchant, manufacturer, affiliation, community, subscription, and utility. In this sense, the websites that offer psychology services online fall within the merchant type under the criteria of Rappa (2005).
The ISO9126 standard in the same way shares a software quality model in 3 important areas, interior (static properties of the code), exterior (dynamic properties of the code when executing), and in use (satisfaction of the user´s needs). The quality of the software is expressed in 10 characteristics (the first 6 of them, common between internal and external and 4 of use); These characteristics are: Functionality; Reliability; Usability; Efficiency; Maintainability; Portability; Effectiveness; Productivity; Security, and Satisfaction. Recent studies show web/software analysis which is referred to in terms of quality, as e-SQ/e-SERVQUAL/e-QUAL; WebQUAL; SiteQUAL; ComQ/eTailQ; WebQUAL 4.0, and Etransqual in which the aspects "Efficiency, Compliance, Availability, Privacy, Responsiveness, Compensation, Contact, Utility, Ease of use, Design, Entertainment, Complementary relationship, Processing speed, Security, Website design, Reliability/compliance, Privacy/security, Customer service, Usability, Information quality, Interaction quality, Functionality/design, Enjoyment, Process, Reliability, and Responsiveness” are measured using a scale (González et al., 2013; Zeithaml, 2000, 2002; Zeithaml et al., 2002; Parasuraman et al., 2005; Loiacono et al., 2007; Yoo & Donthu, 2001; Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2003 Barnes & Vidgen, 2002; Petnji et al., 2012; Palacios & Noci, 2008; and Bauer & Scharl, 2006).
And if the theory indicates different web analysis studies, and taking into account that there is no exact formula or general model that evidences a deep evaluation of websites, then it can be proposed that the websites that offer online psychology services be evaluated in times of pandemic, when thousands and thousands of people confined by government decrees must be locked in their homes for long periods, when tolerance, empathy, and other values that must arise in these conditions of social quarantine are put to the test. And it is there, where many people turn to online psychology services; but there are no true studies that confirm the presence of such sites, that offer guarantees for users, that provide reliability and especially the privacy of personal data. And how not to find a psychological offer on the web even if doubts are raised about the regulation of these new virtual therapeutic models, the verification of the quality of the service provision taking into account pseudo-information, for this reason, studies are required to determine what is the current panorama of each country regarding the offer of this service in online psychology in times of pandemic, for the reason that no relevant studies have yet been recorded regarding the present object of study.
For these theory-based reasons, it is necessary to analyze the websites that provide online psychology services in Latin America and propose through this study a generic indicator for the websites of this category in the provision of psychological services.
2. Methodology
2.1. Participants – Population sample
The present study is based on a quantitative method with statistical validation applied in a total population (N) of 144 cybermedia in the provision of psychology services, which for the study is called cyberpsychology. All the cybermedia analyzed have the main characteristic of a Latin American website.
Table 1. Population distribution of cybermedia in cyberpsychology.
Source: self-made
2.2. Survey instrument
The instrument designed for fieldwork was built under the fusion of criteria previously exposed in the theoretical references (Hernández & Fransi, 2014; Codina, et al., 2014; Rodríguez-Martínez, Codina, & Pedraza-Jiménez, 2010; González -López, Bañegil & Buenadicha, 2013), a measurement instrument is presented with 49 variables divided into 10 dimensions according to the theory and a characterization segment with particular information of the cybermedia.
Table 2. Dimensions of the measuring instrument in the first instance.
Source: self-made.
27 variables of these dimensions were evaluated in a bimodal way (Freixa, Soler-Adillon, Sora & Ribas, 2014) with the presence and absence of the variable for each dimension of each website. And 33 numerical variables were analyzed under Main Component Analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis. These processes are specified in the statistical analysis section in the following lines.
2.3. Procedure
The process began with the definition of the search criteria to determine how many websites there are in Latin America that provide online psychological therapy services; For this purpose, the search equation was determined that would allow yielding effective results in the implemented search engines. The search engine selected to perform the tracking was Google Chrome with an incognito window to avoid biasing the search, given that it is the search engine with the largest market share worldwide with 82% in February 2020 and in April of the same year, with greater fury in times of pandemic, Google Chrome remains in first place with 65.5%, being the most used search engine in the world (NetMarketShare, 2020).
Besides, the terms of the search equation were defined by which the web sites of interest for this work would be tracked by Google Chrome in advanced search, separated by the Boolean operator OR (Psychology OR Online OR Service OR Therapy OR Consultation OR Consulting room), a search restricted by region to the country referred to, in this case, each country belonging to Latin America. Finally, the search criteria were completed with the results thrown in the first 10 pages of results for each country. Figure 1.
Figure 1. Search equation.
The fieldwork was implemented from February 1st to March 26th, 2020, and 149 websites were registered in 19 of 20 countries that belong to Latin America, taking into account that Haiti does not have any website that offers online psychology services, this was discarded in the fieldwork, likewise, 5 websites that did not belong to the object of study were eliminated, since it was identified that such sites were platforms for psychologists´ profiles. Subsequently, the registration and systematization of the information of each website found in the information matrix designed in Excel with bimodal qualification (0 or 1, absence or presence) in each variable began, avoiding the subjective biases of the researchers; and other quantitative valuations according to certain variables defined in the said matrix such as positioning in Ranking (PageRank), Trust Flow, among others (See Table 3); their valuations are merely quantitative, some discrete and others continuous.
2.4. Statistical analysis
As mentioned above, the objective of this work aims to build an indicator that measures the websites that provide online psychology services in Latin America, among other subscripts that measure the information extracted from the objective variables strongly correlated in each of the found and duly systematized websites.
Each systematized URL was analyzed by various websites (Table 3) or ICT tools scientifically validated in other studies (González-López et al., 2013; Rodríguez-Martínez, et.al., 2010; De Andrés, Lorca & Martínez, 2010; Miranda & Bañegil, 2004; Islam and Tsuji, 2011; Won et al., 2010; Takahashi & Kitagawa, 2009, Tanaka et al., 2010; Yamamoto & Tanaka, 2011) to analyze the different variables proposed in this research.
Table 3. ICT resources for the evaluation of each website.
Source: self-made.
Taking into account that the instrument contains 27 dichotomous variables and 33 numerical variables, these two segments were analyzed separately and different procedures were carried out; the segment of dichotomous variables was subjected to internal reliability studies (George & Mallery, 2003; Hernandez-Sampieri, Fernández & Baptista, 2014) using Crombach's Alpha statistical test (α), the composite reliability coefficient (CR) in which values greater than .70 are considered optimal according to Gefen and Straub (2005). The corresponding measures of central tendency (M) and dispersion (DT) were calculated.
Besides, with the segment of numerical variables, to achieve these objectives, we proceed to implement multivariate analysis as the main technique, exploratory factor analysis under the main-components technique, taking into account its ability to summarize a high volume of information, allowing to identify the different dimensions or most significant constructs for the study and thus avoid subjective considerations.
Initially, the adequacy of the sample of the correlation matrix is verified, verifying the possible factorization with the multivariate technique and normalization with the KMO test according to the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin criterion (suitability of the data) and extraction of components (Guisande, Vaamonde & Barreiro, 2011). Then, we proceed to eliminate those variables with low extractions following Hair et al. (1999) and Pérez (2004); These extractions express the proportion of variance of a variable explained by the selected factors. In this sense, the KMO improves and the Factor Analysis technique is applied again to the remaining variables.
3. Results
To carry out a judicious analysis and taking into account the construction of the instrument used for the systematization of the information of the analyzed websites, the first results obtained correspond to the 26 retrachoric (dichotomous) variables, which were subjected to descriptive statistics and with measures of central tendency, which allow the analysis of the frequencies of each variable and their different distributions (DT), averages (M), asymmetries (A), and kurtosis (K).
Table 4. Descriptive statistics – retrachoric variables (dichotomous) (n=144).
Source: self-made.
Table 4 shows the descriptive results, and to minimize the error and increase the validity of the instrument and its reliability, variable 16 (The website has social networks) was eliminated since, for reasons that its corrected correlation is of negative coefficient; Consequently, the correlation between the items improves substantially and yields a very good level of reliability with a Crombach's alpha of (α = .701) with 25 of the 26 items, categorizing the instrument as optimal and reliable according to the criteria of George and Mallery (2003); Hernandez-Sampieri, Fernández & Baptista, 2014; Gefen and Straub (2005).
According to the results, the value of the total average is (Mt = 0.3634) in a range from 0 to 1, obtaining the lowest value in (I28 = .07) and the highest (I3 = .95); This indicates that a high percentage of websites do not have most of the items analyzed, degrading their quality, and the variable with the highest frequency of presence is their own domain (I3). In terms of variances, there are low deviations, taking into account that their range oscillates between DT = .216 and DT = 501 in items I3 and I21 respectively, indicating very low data variability. On the other hand, atypical information was found showing that most of the data are positive, minimum and maximum, corresponding to items I3 = -4.242 and I28 = 3.423.
Table 5. Rotated components matrix – Varimax rotation – Total explained variance. N=144.
Source: self-made.
However, when the 32 numerical variables were subjected to the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) study, extractions of the items with very low coefficients below (<.5) were detected (Ferrando & Anguiano-Carrasco 2010; González et al., 2013; Lloret-Segura et al., 2014) these items were I22, I45, I48, I49, I50, I51, I58, I59, I60, and I61, which were eliminated to give a better result in the extracted variance; These extractions express the proportion of variance of a variable explained by the extracted factors. In this sense, the results in KMO = .702 (greater than .6) and Bartlett's Sphericity Test = .000 (less than .05) (Table 5), so the null hypothesis is contrasted, therefore the factorial model is adequate to explain the phenomenon.
When applying the multivariate technique of main components (Guisande, Vaamonde & Barreiro, 2011) with Varimax extraction to determine the level of correlation between the variables, there were 6 components with an extracted variance of 84.67%, the component that best explains the phenomenon is the Component 1 called Google PageRank and Traffic Sources (GPrFT) with 28.07% representing most of the information (Table 5).
3.1. Online Psychology Measurement Indicator - IMPOL
The IMPOL indicator is a general indicator constructed from the variables selected in the previous EFA, and is expressed by the following mathematical formula:
Factor 1 is composed of results obtained from Google PageRank and Traffic sources to a greater extent, this factor was called GPrTS.
Factor 2 is composed of the results obtained by the variables that refer to the problems under the three levels of adequacy (A, AA, and AAA), this factor was called Adequacy Problems - AP.
Factor 3 is composed of the results obtained by the variables that refer to the warnings under the three levels of adequacy (A, AA, and AAA), this factor was called Adequacy Warnings - AW.
Factor 4 is made up of the results obtained by the variables that refer to Google PageRank Backlinks, this factor was called BGPr.
Factor 5 is made up of the results obtained by the variables that refer to the Alexa Engagement indicators, this factor was called AE.
Factor 6 is composed of the results obtained by the variables that refer to the indicators of Sites that link and the Loading time, this factor was called SlLt.
Table 6. Top 10 websites according to the IMPOL Online Psychology indicator. n=144.
Source: self-made.
When applying the IMPOL indicator to each of the URLs under study in this work, the results obtained by each one are standardized, with a score ranging from 0 to 1, with 0 being the best result, and the furthest result to 0 indicates the worst result. In this order of ideas, table 6 identifies the first 10 URLs (websites) with the best scores against the IMPOL indicator. As can be seen, 2 websites were found that offer online psychology of Chilean nationality, 4 Brazilian, 1 Mexican, 2 Argentinian, and 1 Honduran (Table 6).
Taking into account the review of the literature, it is concluded that the components are related by their conceptual content in these factors, and in this way, the dimensions are reconfigured into only three factors or sub-indicators as described below:
Factor 1 GPrTS and factor 4 BGPr, these factors refer to the web positioning, assuming between them an explained variance of the phenomenon of 40.27%. In this way, a new sub-indicator called "Web Positioning Indicator - WPI" is reconstructed.
WPI indicator = .28071 (GPrTS) + .12207 (BGPr) with a level of importance representativeness of 47.6%
Table 7. Top 10 websites according to the WPI Web Positioning Indicator.
Source: self-made.
Factor 2 AP and factor 3 AW refer to accessibility, assuming between them an explained variance of the phenomenon of 32.68%. In this way, a new sub-indicator called "Accessibility indicator AI" is reconstructed.
AI indicator = .16619 (AP) + .16061 (AW) with a level of importance representativeness of 38.6%
The values obtained on each website are interpreted in the opposite way than the other sub-indicators, the value farther from 0 has greater accessibility, given by its condition of the indicators of problems and warnings, as it in general terms produces very high figures for each URL.
Table 8. Top 10 websites according to the Accessibility Indicator - AI.
Source: self-made.
Factor 5 AE and factor 6 SlLt refer to Engagement and Efficiency, assuming between them an explained variance of the phenomenon of 11.71%. In this way, a new sub-indicator called "Efficiency Indicator for Engagement EIE" is reconstructed.
EIE indicator = .0673 (AE) + .0498 (SlLt) with a level of importance representativeness of 13.8%
Table 9. Top 10 websites according to the Efficiency Indicator for Engagement EIE.
Source: self-made
Of all the analyzed Latin American countries that have websites to provide online psychology, it was classified in the form of a ranking with the obtained results, since all 144 existing websites with this condition were studied, avoiding bias. Table 10 shows the global results with the application of all the indicators after determining the averages for each country, reference is made to the global IMPOL indicator where the best-valued countries were identified.
Table 10. Position of nationality against the proposed indicators.
Source: self-made.
Finally, Table 11 presents the 6 countries with the best results obtained after the application of each indicator to each URL and from each country, it must be borne in mind that not all countries have the same amount of analyzed URLs and for this reason, Bolivia is in the first place in Table 10, as this country has only 5 websites in contrast to countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, which have 22, 26, and 28 websites respectively, which provide online psychology services in times of pandemic.
Table 11. The position of nationality according to the 144 websites according to the proposed indicators.
Source: self-made.
4. Discussion
Using the indicators proposed in this work, the Online Psychology Measurement Indicator (IMPOL), the Web Positioning Indicator (WPI), the Accessibility Indicator (AI), and the Efficiency Indicator for Engagement (EIE), the main websites in Latin America that offer online Psychology services have been identified. Thus, Brazilian websites are the ones with the best results in Latin American countries.
The present work shows similarities with studies properly mentioned in the state of the art of research, it was possible to determine the concepts related to the studies carried out by Hernández and Fransi, (2014); Codina, et al., (2014); Rodríguez-Martínez, Codina, and Pedraza-Jiménez, (2010); González-López, Bañegil, and Buenadicha, (2013), from which the variables that best adjusted to the proposed model and for the online psychology sector were subtracted, taking into account the convenience of the study and the results obtained by the implemented statistical method. On the other hand, qualitative and quantitative evaluation variables proposed by the studies of these same studies were analyzed, obtaining optimal results that satisfy the proposed objectives.
The results confirm that, although in the implemented Indicators and without maintaining proportionality between the number of websites that provide the same service, it is the countries that have the least online psychology websites in times of pandemic that show unfavorable results; In this way, it is evident that the greater the offer of the online psychology service, the greater the effort will be made by the psychologists who provide this type of virtual services, who must offer greater efficiency, accessibility, and web positioning to their potential audiences, taking into account the high competition in the market in the field of online psychology.
Despite the pandemic conditions that the world is currently experiencing, and the latent need of people to access psychological therapies online or by teleconference, websites lack several aspects of web quality if the index proposed by González et al., (2013) and Rodríguez-Martínez et al., (2010) is applied; This phenomenon is presented by the great increase in web platforms that with their developments and pre-established web structures do not boost the diversification of the sector in aspects of web quality, security, accessibility, and web positioning, especially in this last aspect, which showed very low results because of the 144 websites analyzed, only 4.86% managed to pass the barrier of half (5) of the Ranking in a count from 0 to 10.
5. Conclusions
It is concluded that the offer of services in online psychology is not the most reliable and lacks resources that favor the purchase of these services reliably and safely, it must be borne in mind that for the number of countries analyzed there is no satisfactory offer of these services in terms of quantity, except for Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, which are the ones that have the most offer of this type of online services, especially in the pandemic time, which is when greater coverage is required in the provision of this virtual service; Although recent studies confirm that the use of videoconferencing has been low in times of the pre-COVID-19 pandemic, this type of service has been growing substantially during the crisis (Helou et al., 2020).
The generation of new websites in online psychology is important, but more important is the generation of web positioning strategies that professionals can tactically implement to be competitive in the virtual market, and those websites that currently exist must strengthen their accessibility, security, popularity, visibility, and web positioning to generate trust in their target audiences. For this reason, an investment must be required for experienced web development to optimize software resources and carry out an adequate individualized development, that is, with unique characteristics that generate value and thus enhance competitiveness.
The present study statistically validates the indicators presented here, all the websites that provide the service of this study were analyzed, the factor analysis was methodologically implemented that allowed the design of exclusive indicators for this specific sector, the dichotomous variables were validated, yielding a satisfactory alpha to determine that the instrument is reliable and consistent. In the same way, it is suggested for future research to consider analyzing another instrument that complements the present study from the content area and thus expanding the range of analysis to implement an analytical model of websites for the online Psychology category. It is suggested to implement other search engines so as not to ignore the findings in future studies.
Finally, it is proposed that the proposed indicators be implemented in other sectors, specifically in Latin America, to further validate the indicators, and this is the opportunity to study the perceptions of users and strengthen the indicators through SEM structural equations. It should be borne in mind that the proposed indicators are a pilot evaluation of online psychology platforms or services in terms of user protection and possible fraud.
References
Authors
Carlos Andrés Trejos-Gil
Faculty of Communication, Advertising, and Design, Social Communication program. Luis Amigó Catholic University. Luis Amigó Catholic University. International Master in Strategic Management; Master in Business Administration and Management (MBA). Senior Management Specialist. Publicist. Administrative Engineer. Research professor in social communication, business administration, marketing, advertising, ICT, and Learning. Business consultant in administrative, commercial, financial, and marketing areas. Trainer in ICT and digital technologies. Research areas: ICT; Digital marketing; B-Learning; Cybercultures; Administration; Marketing; Social Sciences; Technology.
carlos.trejosgi@amigo.edu.co
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6769-3396
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=46Gr7u4AAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Trejos_Gil
Academia.edu: https://funlam.academia.edu/CARLOSANDRESTREJOSGIL
Huber Yesid Castro Escobar
Professor in the area of ICT and Education, Research Professor in Education, ICT, and Audiovisual Media, and Leader of the Quality of Life Research Group, of the Luis Amigó Catholic University. Master in Communication from the Universidad del Norte. Degree in Computer Science and Audiovisual Media from the University of Córdoba. Research areas: ICT, Education, and Communication for Social Change.
huber.castroes@amigo.edu.co
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8714-2487
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lOUtSkIAAAAJ&hl=es
Omar Augusto Amador Sánchez
Professional in Psychology, a specialist in Cognitive Therapy, and Magister in Psychology from the University of San Buenaventura-Medellín. With more than 10 years of experience in individual clinical care, professor and researcher in Psychopathology, cognitive clinical psychology, and trainer in related topics. Research areas, Clinical Psychology, Suicide, online psychology, psychopathology, social and behavioral sciences. Researcher of the research group Basic and Applied Neurosciences (NBA by its acronym in Spanish) of the Luis Amigó Catholic University.
omar.amadorsa@amigo.edu.co
Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6013-8480
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2EdSYP0AAAAJ&hl=es&oi=sra
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Omar_Amador5