In-Person and Online Administration of the Rorschach during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Secondary Data from Ales et al. (2023) and Aschieri et al. (2023)

The COVID-19 pandemic required a shift in mental health service delivery, enhancing a transition to online modes, including psychological assessment. Although several guidelines for tele-assessment had already been established prior to the pandemic, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to the widespread use of virtual assessment delivery. This raised the issue about the equivalence between different ways of administering tests. The Rorschach Test, as a performance-based task, poses several challenges when administered online due to its visual and interpersonal nature. The current work compares data from two studies conducted in Italy during the pandemic: one involving traditional in-person Rorschach R-PAS (Meyer et al., 2011) administration (Aschieri et al., 2024) and the other using a beta version of an app designed for remote administration (Ales et al., 2023. Overall, 15 variables showed moderate to large differences between the administration modes. After controlling for age and education differences between the samples, seven variables retained moderate to large differences. The in-person sample exhibited more pathological features and greater reactivity to stimuli. These findings highlight the complexity of remote assessment, encouraging the need for further studies to investigate new potential solutions for online administration of the Rorschach.