Technology is being rapidly implemented in healthcare services including mental health. With its increasing popularity and frequent use, there was scope to analyse and compare tele-counselling with the conventional mode of face-to-face counselling in terms of promoting psychological wellbeing. Thus, present research aims to make an overall and dimension-wise comparison of psychological wellbeing in tele-counselling and face-to-face counselling. A pre-test post-test comparative design was adopted. Sample consisted of 600 adults between ages 20 to 45 taken from various counselling centers in Jaipur. Each group included 300 participants, who underwent tele counselling and in-person counselling respectively over the course of two months. Sessions were structured and psychological wellbeing was assessed during pre-test, post- test 1 and post-test 2 using Ryff’s 18-item Psychological Wellbeing Scale which assesses wellbeing on 6 dimensions - autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. Results from independent samples t-tests indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between tele-counselling and in-person counselling on overall psychological wellbeing at pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2. Repeated measures ANOVA showed a statistically significant increase in overall psychological wellbeing scores over time for both face-to-face and tele counselling. Dimension-wise results showed statistical improvements in all six dimensions of psychological wellbeing for both groups. Face-to-face counselling showed greater improvement in positive relations with others and self-acceptance. Tele-counselling showed equally good results with higher improvements in autonomy and environmental mastery. Personal growth and purpose in life showed improvements in both face-to-face and tele counselling with no significant difference between the groups. Results from this study indicate that tele-counselling is as effective as face-to-face counselling in improving overall and dimension-wise psychological wellbeing.
Rathore, K. & Puri, P. (2026). A Comparative Study of Psychological Wellbeing in Tele-Counselling and Face-to-Face Counselling. International Journal of Academic Excellence and Research, 02(03), 136–141. https://doi.org/10.62823/IJAER/02.03.269