Barriers to Finding Psychology Postdoctoral Training Opportunities in Intensive Care Settings

Purpose/Objective: U.S. health organizations, including Division 22 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Critical Care Medicine, and the American Thoracic Society advocate for psychological treatment that improves long-term outcomes in critical illness survivors. However, limited information exists with regard to psychology training opportunities in intensive care settings. We aim to identify and describe (a) existing psychology programs with training in intensive care settings and (b) barriers to finding these training opportunities. Research Method/Design: Using aspects of the Arksey and O'Malley Framework and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews reporting checklist as guides, two independent reviewers searched the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Directory and Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory (UPPD) to identify programs with training experiences in intensive care settings. Results: Searching the APPIC Directory did not reliably or accurately identify training opportunities in intensive care settings. Thus, only programs identified in the more reliable UPPD search were considered for inclusion. After duplicates were removed, searches using the UPPD yielded 31 programs for review. Of those, 22 programs met inclusion, offering heterogeneous training in intensive care settings. Conclusions/Implications: These results suggest few opportunities exist for psychology training in intensive care settings and available opportunities are difficult to identify using standard search methods. The identified challenges also emphasize the need for advanced search features for training opportunities within APPIC/UPPD and/or a list of programs offering these training opportunities. Our results highlight the importance of program descriptions that accurately and comprehensively reflect training opportunities-particularly relating to opportunities in intensive care settings.