Interprofessional continuing education in health professions - a scoping review of framework conditions, design...

Little is known about the design of interprofessional continuing education programs and the extent of the professional backgrounds of participants and lecturers, even though this information can be important for planning, implementing and achieving objectives. The aim of this study is therefore to provide a systematic overview of the framework conditions, design processes and evaluation designs of the interprofessional continuing education programs described in these studies.

A scoping review was conducted. A systematic literature search was carried out in the MEDLINE, CINAHL, PROSPERO and ProQuest databases. In addition, relevant, nonindexed journals and grey literature were included and searched manually. The studies were selected on the basis of defined criteria and analysed deductively according to framework conditions and process and outcome criteria on the basis of Freeth and Reeves' "3P model of learning to collaborate".

Analysis of the included studies (n=79) revealed that interprofessional continuing education courses are used mainly by members of the medical and nursing professions. Some of the courses are led by interprofessional teams. The pedagogical qualifications of the instructors are rarely reported. Courses often take place in acute inpatient settings as part of emergency simulations. Furthermore, the care of people with certain diseases and communication are addressed relatively frequently. The continuing education courses are evaluated mainly by the participants.

To assess the quality of interprofessional continuing education courses, the framework conditions should also be reported in full. Interprofessional events should increasingly offer cross-setting and cross-sector topics and include the perspective of patients in the evaluation.