A critical interpretive synthesis of interprofessional education interventions

Interprofessional practice can look quite different depending on a number of dynamics. Interprofessional education interventions may or may not orient toward this range of practice possibilities. This literature review explores: (1) how interprofessional education interventions relate to different kinds of interprofessional practice and (2) the range of interprofessional practices assumed by interprofessional education interventions. Four databases were searched for articles published between 2011-2021 describing pre-licensure level interprofessional education interventions, resulting in a dataset of 110 articles. Our analysis involved (1) descriptive summaries of the articles, and (2) content analysis of the rationale and description of the intervention. Of the articles, 93% (102/110) of interprofessional education interventions were designed and/or evaluated using the concept of interprofessional education competencies. "Teamwork" was the most relied upon competency. Most articles were not explicit about the different kinds of interprofessional practices that these competencies might be oriented toward. Our study substantiates earlier claims that interprofessional education literature tends to focus on competencies and orient toward undifferentiated understandings of "teamwork." This analysis is particularly important as interprofessional teams are engaging in increasingly complex, fluid, and distributed forms of interprofessional practice that may not be captured in an undifferentiated approach to "teamwork."