Instruments measuring interprofessional collaboration in healthcare – a scoping review

Worldwide there is growing understanding of the importance of interprofessional collaboration in providing well-functioning healthcare. However, little is known about how interprofessional collaboration can be measured between different health-care professionals. In this review, we aim to fill this gap, by identifying and analyzing the existing instruments measuring interprofessional collaboration in healthcare. A scoping review design was applied. A systematic literature search of two electronic databases, Medline (PubMed) and CINAHL, was conducted in 03/2018. The search yielded 1020 studies, of which 35 were selected for the review. The data were analyzed by content analysis. In total, 29 instruments measuring interprofessional collaboration were found. Interprofessional collaboration was measured predominantly between nurses and physicians with different instruments in various health-care settings. Psychometric testing was unsystematic, focusing predominantly on construct and content validity and internal consistency, thus further validation studies with comprehensive testing are suggested. The results of this review can be used to select instruments measuring interprofessional collaboration in practice or research. Future research is needed to strengthen the evidence of reliability and validity of these instruments.