Interprofessional education is important to help prepare and develop a health professional workforce that practices collaboratively. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the benefits of participation in short duration clinically-based interprofessional activities for health care professional students. Eight electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PUBMED, EMBASE, PsychINFO, PEDRO, ERIC, OT Seeker) were searched from inception to June 2017. Full-text English-language studies reporting outcomes of short duration clinically-based interprofessional activities involving health professional students from at least two disciplines were included. Studies were excluded if they evaluated longer duration, iterative or simulation-based interprofessional activities. Data were analysed descriptively and using content analysis based on the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice framework. Of 521 identified articles, 13 were identified for inclusion and assessed for quality independently by two reviewers. The included studies assessed two types of interprofessional activities (shadowing and patient reviews) completed by a range of different student cohorts including those from medicine, pharmacy, nursing, dietetics, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work, podiatry, speech pathology, and medical imaging. Students perceived shadowing a health professional from another discipline, for between 2 and 10 hours during the early stages of their training, improved their understanding across all domains of the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice framework. Students who completed patient review activities with at least one other student or staff member from another discipline, for 2.5 to 4 hours during the later stages of their training, described developing clinical skills in addition to improving their understanding of the roles and responsibilities and teamwork domains of the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice framework. A low quality body ofevidence suggests short duration clinically-based interprofessional activities may help prepare health professional students to work collaboratively.
Keywords: Content analysis; collaborative practice; interprofessional learning; pre-qualifying/pre-licensure; systematic review.