A scoping review to understand simulation used in interprofessional education

The purpose of this scoping review is to describe professions engaged in interprofessional education-focused simulations, characterize the types of simulations, and review common facilitators and barriers to utilization in the classroom, clinical and experiential settings. An electronic search of PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and ERIC databases was conducted. Peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between January 2007 and November 2017 were retrieved. Articles were included if they were interprofessional, included learners and simulation, were research articles, and had full text available. A total of 315 articles were screened and 93 were eligible for analysis, of which, 64% (n = 60) were published since 2015. The most common professions were nursing (n = 76), medical students (n = 55), physical therapy (n = 27), pharmacy (n = 25), and medical residents (n = 13), respiratory therapy (n = 12), occupational therapy (n = 12), dentistry (n = 9), and paramedic (n = 8). The most common types of simulations were mannequin alone (n = 33), or standardized patients alone (n = 17) as well as standardized patient plus mannequin (n = 11) or other types of multiple simulations (n = 18). Typically, between three to six professions participated in each simulation (range 2-13). Key facilitators included representation of more than two professions, including at least one learner per profession on each team, using realistic cases that could be adapted to reflect the learner's knowledge and skills, allowing repetitive practice in order to fix mistakes, including a debriefing session, and including simulations in required courses. Barriers included not having enough learners for a valid evaluation of the simulation experience, learner's lack of experience with interprofessional education or simulations, learner's feeling uncomfortable being observed, different knowledge and skill by profession, poor learner attitude, scheduling, cost, and incorporating learners who are both required and elect to complete the simulation. Additional research is needed to assess the impact of these experiences, both at the time of the activity and as learners transition to become practitioners.