Barriers to finding psychology postdoctoral training opportunities in intensive care settings.
Andrew D May, Jamie L Tingey, Kirk J Stucky and 2 others
PMID 37917460WHAT IT FOUND
Only 22 US postdoctoral psychology programs offer ICU training, and the standard search directories fail to surface them.
Two programs the authors knew existed did not appear in the results.
Key findings
01Of the 22 programs meeting inclusion criteria, 11 (50%) offered pediatric ICU training, 7 (32%) adult ICU, and 5 (23%) NICU. Most had a primary focus in clinical health psychology (16 of 22, 73%).
02The APPIC Directory returned unusable results for ICU searches because its search operators matched partial words (e.g., 'curr icu lum' for 'ICU'), so only UPPD results were used and the search was limited to postdoctoral programs.
03Program descriptions on the UPPD and in program brochures rarely specified which type of ICU (surgical, medical, trauma, cardiac, neuroscience) or what proportion of training time would occur in the ICU.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The list is not comprehensive: the authors' own search missed two adult ICU programs they knew existed, and the predoctoral search tool (APPIC) returned unusable results, so predoctoral opportunities are excluded. Only one reliable directory (UPPD) could be used, and program descriptions on that directory were vague about what ICU training actually involves. The search was conducted in February 2022, so programs added or removed since then are not reflected.
Declared interests
The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest. No funding source is named.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the 22 programs as a complete list of US ICU psychology training. The authors' own search missed two programs they knew existed, and the predoctoral search tool returned unusable results, so the true number of available slots is likely higher than reported.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →