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A recent survey shows that postdoctoral psychology training directors and interns support psychologists’ prescribing privileges more in theory than in practice.
Consistent with the official American Psychological Association position, 72 percent of respondents endorsed limited prescribing privileges for trained psychologists. In contrast, only 34 percent of training directors and 52 percent of interns said they would actually seek training to prescribe, according to the results published in last month’s issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.
The psychological association, which publishes the journal, officially endorsed developing training curricula that would prepare psychologists to prescribe psychotropic medications, according to a psychological association press release.
The authors commented, "It must be unsettling for those who advocate prescription privileges to see the lesser interest of training directors, relative to interns, in obtaining prescribing privileges for themselves.
"If a group of training directors do not seek these privileges, they will communicate to their interns that being able to prescribe is of accordingly lesser value and desirability."
The surveys were completed last year by 226 training directors (43 percent response rate) and 846 predoctoral psychology interns.
Psychologists are justified in having prescription privileges because other nonphysician professionals have obtained similar privileges, stated a majority of interns and training directors.
The majority of respondents also believed it would not cost them hospital clinical privileges nor would prescriptive authority damage psychologists’ credibility.
About 60 percent of respondents disagreed that prescribing authority was necessitated by the medicalization of DSM-IV disorders.
About half of the training directors and interns thought prescription privileges would improve their ability to collect third-party reimbursement and that it was an economic necessity and essential to the future independent practice of psychology, according to the article.
"Interns, the next generation of psychologists, see both merit and personal relevance in the prescription authority issue. This bodes well for the future of the political initiatives already being promoted around the country," the authors said.
They also recommended that training programs be designed to accommodate the professional and personal obligations of mid-career psychologists.
"To the extent that senior psychologists attain these privileges and can themselves become educators in clinical psychopharmacology, the option of integrating this training into the predoctoral curriculum becomes more practical."