United States of America Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists’ Career Satisfaction by Career Stage

Objective This study sought to examine career satisfaction among United States of America child and adolescent psychiatrists (CAPs) across career stages, identifying predictive factors for their career satisfaction. Methods A total of 526 CAPs responded to a national career satisfaction survey. Satisfaction was assessed via responses to statements about their career on a Likert scale. Career satisfaction was defined as the sum of the scores for satisfaction with their choice of career, career advancement, and career recognition. Responses were disaggregated by the number of years post child and adolescent psychiatry residency training (early career: 0–10 years; midcareer: 11–20 years; and late career: 21 + years post-training). Stepwise linear regression analyses identified predictive factors of career satisfaction. Results CAPs’ career satisfaction was high (3.95) and increased with career stage. It was most positively correlated with advancement opportunities, job enjoyment, and control of assigned tasks, and most negatively correlated with workload. Job enjoyment was the leading predictive factor of career satisfaction for early career and late career CAPs, with midcareer CAPs identifying task assignment control as the leading contributor to their career satisfaction (all p = .000). Conclusions Career satisfaction in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is high, increases with career stage, and is most predicted by advancement opportunities. Further study of the predictive factors of CAPs’ career satisfaction is warranted as we focus on increasing the workforce in child and adolescent psychiatry.