What is the effect of different interprofessional education teaching strategies on healthcare professions students' interprofessional learning outcomes? A systematic narrative review

Abstract

Aim: To explore different types of interprofessional education (IPE) teaching strategies used in pre-licensure interprofessional learning programmes and the effective components of these strategies in promoting student learning, IPE skills, behavioural change, organisational practice, or patient health outcomes.

Background: IPE is rapidly becoming a core element of health professions preparation programmes worldwide, but the differential effects of different ways of delivering IPE are not well documented.

Design: Systematic narrative review.

Method: Systematic searches were completed in four major biomedical databases from inception until 2023. The most dominant approach for each study was used to classify the studies. The standardised effect of different IPE interventions on healthcare professional students' interprofessional learning outcomes were extracted and compared.

Results: Simulation was commonly used by IPE educators in undergraduate health education settings, changing participants' attitudes toward interprofessional learning. In addition, role-play, group discussion, and case studies showed significant benefits in improving communication and collaboration abilities. Based on the component analysis of the included 24 studies, IPE developers were recommended to consider key elements in designing effective education interventions, including a specific teaching setting, a well-designed strategy, an appropriate guiding theory, and suitable educational outcomes which target the learning elements that the intervention was designed to affect.

Conclusion: The available data suggested that no single teaching strategy was superior in improving health students' interprofessional learning outcomes. Controlled intervention studies that randomise similar student populations to different IPE strategies are needed to improve understanding of their comparative effects on different learning outcomes.

Keywords: Health professional students; Interprofessional education; Systematic narrative review.