Development and testing of a questionnaire on the expectations and experiences with wearing face masks in inpatient...

The Covid-19 pandemic made wearing of face masks mandatory in the psychotherapeutic context. Against this background, the present study aimed to compare the expectations of patients undergoing day-hospital or inpatient treatment regarding wearing a mask in psychotherapy before the start of therapy with the final experience after the end of therapy. The study also investigated the extent to which expectations and experiences were influenced by other factors such as socio-demographic characteristics, patients' general attitudes towards wearing a mask, duration of treatment, or mental health diagnoses.

Patients' expectations and experiences were recorded using two versions of a self-developed questionnaire: the pre-version, which was administered before the start of therapy and recorded expectations, and the post-version, which was administered after the end of therapy and recorded the final experiences. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted for the questionnaire's pre- and post-version. T-tests for paired samples were calculated to compare the patients' expectations regarding the extracted factors with the final experiences. Bivariate correlations were calculated to explore the association of other potential factors with expectations and experiences.

The exploratory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure: communication barriers, self-confidence, and infection protection. The communication barriers expected by the patients before the start of the therapy turned out to be significantly higher than ultimately experienced after the therapy. Higher age correlated significantly negatively with expectations and experiences, with less self-confidence expected and experienced in therapy with a mask by older patients. There was a significant positive correlation between the expectations and the duration of treatment. Patients' general attitudes correlated significantly with their expectations and experiences.

Based on the results, wearing a mask does not appear to negatively impact the success of psychotherapy from the patient's perspective. However, patient-specific characteristics also appear to play a role in this context.