Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder by Developmental-Behavioral Pediatricians in Academic Centers: A DBPNet Study

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FIGURE 1
Physician participation in ASD diagnostic survey. DES, diagnostic-encounter survey; NDD, neurodevelopmental disabilities.
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FIGURE 2
Percentage of visits in which the assessment was reviewed or completed by site. ^aP < .001 and ^bP = .061 for differences across sites.

TABLE 1

Participation and Characteristics of Evaluation by Site

Site	Developmental-Behavioral Pediatricians, n			Percentage of Evaluations Completed in, %			Percentage of Interdisciplinary Team Evaluations and Disciplines Included, %
Site	Eligible	Participating	Number of ASD Encounters	1 Visit	2 Visits	≥3 Visits	Any	Psych	ST	OT
1	11	8	35	63	37	0	26	6	20	0
2	4	3	20	78	22	0	10	10	0	0
3	4	3	13	0	0	100	0	0	0	0
4	4	3	28	96	4	0	7	7	7	0
5	3	3	14	23	46	31	50	50	14	0
6	12	10	35	49	34	17	17	11	17	6
7	5	5	27	0	41	59	0	0	0	0
8	14	11	31	58	42	0	10	3	6	0
9	11	10	49	69	31	0	18	18	0	0
10	4	4	22	95	5	0	45	41	45	5
11^a	3	2	4
12^a	3	3	6

OT, occupational therapist ; Psych, psychologist ; ST, speech therapist .
↵a Site-specific encounter characteristics not reported due to low number of encounters.

TABLE 2

Participating Clinician Demographic Data

Characteristics	Value
Age,^a mean ± SD, y	48.1 ± 8.7
Female gender, %	84
Full time, %	64
Full-time equivalent effort for part-time physicians (n = 19), mean ± SD (range), %	71.8 ± 17.6 (30–90)
Board-certified or eligible in DBP, %	98.1
Board-certified or eligible in NDD, %	15.4
Years since completing fellowship (n = 47),^b mean ± SD (range)	13.9 ± 11.2 (0–50)
Number of clinical sessions per week seeing patients on own, mean ± SD (range)	3.5 ± 2.4 (0–8)
Number of clinical sessions per week seeing patients in supervisory capacity, mean ± SD (range)	1.3 ± 1.4 (0–7)

N = 52. Data were missing for 4 of the 56 physicians who returned encounter forms. NDD, neurodevelopmental disabilities.
↵a Data on age was available for 51 clinicians.
↵b The fellowship completed did not have to be a DBP fellowship.

TABLE 3

Demographic Information on Children Receiving Diagnosis of ASD

TABLE 4

Relationship Between Number of Visits, Types of Assessment, and Physician Time

	Assessments in Which Test Was Performed as Part of the Assessment, %			Physician Time,^a min
	Developmental Testing^b	Semistructured Observation^b	CARS	Face-to-Face^b	Reviewing Reports	Writing Report
1 Visit	29	43	16	87	19	31
2 Visits	46	63	20	113	22	40
≥3 Visits	58	80	5	113	21	35

↵a Physician time was reported for encounters in which physician was not supervising a resident or fellow.
↵b P ≤ .001 for difference between number of visits.