The effectiveness of interprofessional education: key findings from a new systematic review

Abstract

Over the past decade systematic reviews of interprofessional education (IPE) have provided a more informed understanding of the effects of this type of education. This paper contributes to this literature by reporting an update of a Cochrane systematic review published in this journal ten years ago (Zwarenstein et al., 1999 ). In updating this initial review, our current work involved searches of a number of electronic databases from 1999-2006, as well as reference lists, books, conference proceedings and websites. Like the previous review, only studies which employed randomized controlled trials, controlled-before and-after-studies and interrupted time series studies of IPE, and that reported validated professional practice and health care outcomes, were included. While the first review found no studies which met its inclusion criteria, the updated review located six IPE studies. This paper aims to add to the ongoing development of evidence for IPE. Despite some useful progress being made in relation to strengthening the evidence base for IPE, the paper concludes by stressing that further rigorous mixed method studies of IPE are needed to provide a greater clarity of IPE and its effects on professional practice and patient/client care.