Interprofessional education (IPE) in clinical practice for pre-registration nursing students: A structured literature review.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the experiences of nursing students after clinical IPE activities through a review of contemporary literature then use the context of nursing programmes in Singapore to consider the transferability of the findings.

DESIGN: Structured literature review.

DATA SOURCES: A search of international qualitative literature no older than five years and published in English was conducted on CINAHL, Embase, Medline and Pubmed.

REVIEW METHODS: A systematic and structured approach was guided by Cooper's five-step approach to review the literature. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme qualitative checklist and the Appraisal of Guidelines Research & Evaluation reporting checklist were used to critically appraise literature in this review.

RESULTS: 13 papers were included for qualitative synthesis. The literature most commonly reported that students had a better understanding of professional roles, improved communication and teamwork. In contrast, the most commonly reported negative experience involved some examples of disparity within the team.

CONCLUSION: Overall findings show that positive student experiences outweigh negative ones. Nursing programmes might be able to reap similar outcomes subject to contextual and cultural differences. However, further research is recommended before IPE in clinical practice is implemented in current nursing programmes in the local setting.