Licensure Actions Against Psychiatric Clinicians: A Cohort Analysis of National Practitioner Database Reports.

Objective: To examine trends and predictors of administrative actions against psychiatric clinicians' licenses between 2002 and 2022.

Methods: Data from the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) identified 6400 disciplinary actions against psychiatric clinicians' licenses. Linear trend models assessed the trends of disciplinary actions across mental/physical health, licensing/legal issues, and unprofessional conduct. A first-order autoregressive model with a time indicator interaction term evaluated structural breaks (ie, a sudden or gradual change in the characteristics of data in a time series). Predictors of claims were assessed using logistic regression.

Results: Since 2002, disciplinary actions related to clinicians' mental/physical health (P=0.004) and licensure/legal issues (P=0.018) have decreased, while actions related to unprofessional conduct remained unchanged (P=0.358). Declines emerged in 2012 for mental/physical health (break coefficient -0.367; P=0.026) and in 2009 for unprofessional conduct (break coefficient -0.199; P=0.013). Clinicians facing disciplinary actions related to physical/mental health were significantly younger than those with legal/licensure issues (P<0.001). While the average age remained stable for mental/physical health-related actions, the average age increased for actions related to licensure/legal claims and unprofessional conduct.

Conclusions: The decrease in disciplinary actions related to physical/mental health may reflect better access and acceptance of treatment of clinicians, while the reduction in licensure/legal actions may indicate policy shifts. Findings regarding age underscore the need for enhanced support for mid and late-career clinicians to promote lifelong learning and practice.