Knowledge, skills, and attitudes of psychologists working with persons with vision impairment

Purpose: Psychologists working with persons with vision impairment face unique challenges in providing psychological services, including mental health care and cognitive assessments. While existing competency guidelines for general disability and rehabilitation psychology are relevant to working with persons with vision impairment in many ways, specific competencies are needed. Previous psychological research into the provision of therapy for persons with vision impairment has focused mainly on communication and intervention strategies and lacks input from the vision-impaired community. Materials and methods: This qualitative study, grounded in disability, rehabilitation psychology, and competency frameworks aimed to identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for psychologists working with persons with vision impairment. Results: Through triangulating responses from both registered psychologists (N = 10) and persons with vision impairment (N = 5), a thematic analysis identified 29 competencies under six major themes, including: Expertise, Impact, Approach, Collaboration, Assessment, and Flexibility. Competencies were discretely categorized as knowledge, skills, or attitudes. Conclusions: This study provides data that may be used as the basis for more rigorous research into identifying areas for vision impaired-specific competency-based training in undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional psychology curricula.

Automated summary

This qualitative study identified 29 competencies necessary for psychologists working with persons with vision impairment, through responses from registered psychologists and persons with vision impairment. The competencies were categorized as knowledge, skills, or attitudes under themes like Expertise, Impact, Approach, Collaboration, Assessment, and Flexibility. These results can be used to develop vision impaired-specific competency-based training in psychology curricula.