ANZAED eating disorder credentialed clinician perceptions and experiences of professional development

Background: The ANZAED Eating Disorder Credential (the Credential) is the first national and cross discipline program to be developed that specifies the standard of qualifications, knowledge, and ongoing professional development activities needed for health professionals to provide safe and effective treatment of eating and feeding disorders. This study explored clinicians’ experiences and perspectives of the Credential with a particular focus on the ongoing requirements for clinicians to engage in supervision and other eating disorder specific continuing professional development (CPD) activities to maintain their credentialing. Methods: Participants were 28 ANZAED Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinicians who participated in a semi-structured interview after completion of an online self-report survey. The interview and survey explored their views on the credentialing of clinicians, motivations to become credentialed, and experiences and perceptions of the CPD requirements. Analysis involved descriptive statistics of survey responses and an inductive thematic analysis of interview transcripts. Results: The thematic analysis generated two main themes with three subthemes for each. The first theme explored the clinicians’ priorities for CPD including supervisor expertise and competence, the supervisory relationship, and accessing and meeting the requirements for CPD. The second theme was on the clinicians’ experiences of CPD focusing specifically on the development of knowledge and competency, support and reflective practice, and the supervisory context. Cutting across these two main themes were the clinicians’ level of experience and clinical practice in eating disorders, and enablers and barriers to CPD. Conclusions: Credentialed clinicians found the CPD requirements of the Credential, including supervision and other CPD activities, to be valuable. However, many questioned the sustainability of maintaining the Credential, perceiving the requirements as challenging to meet due to time, cost, or access. There is a need for consideration of how to embed greater flexibility in the CPD requirements to account for a clinician’s level of experience, clinicians’ developmental needs, and professional circumstances.