Psychology and Primary Care: a proposal of competences
Abstract
This paper reports an empirical approach to define performance competencies for psychologists in primary health care (PHC). We seek to answer: wich are the competences required to perform well as a psychologist in PHC?
A proposal of 76 competencies is built through the Delphi group technique. To validate the proposal, an online survey is answered by 101 psychologists, rating 74 of the competencies as relevant or very relevant. Self-selection bias, low and progressively declining number of response rate, limits the use of results to validly characterize competencies.
The findings are analyzed using the model of Integrated Health and Health Psychology. We propose that while the definition of competencies is useful to define the role of the PHC psychologists, a previous definition of profiles is required.
