Examining Social Work Engagement in Healthcare-Focused Interprofessional Education: A Systematic Scoping Review

Social workers frequent interprofessional healthcare teams. However, there are no identified systematic reviews to analyze efforts in social work education to engage in healthcare-focused interprofessional education (IPE). The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for a systematic scoping review were utilized for reporting purposes. Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework was used to 1) identify the research question, 2) identify relevant studies, 3) select relevant studies, 4) chart the data, and 5) report results. The final analysis included 49 articles. During data extraction, the following categories were utilized to organize findings: 1) Attitudes, 2) Infrastructure development, 3) Descriptive articles, and 4) Outcomes studies. Most of the IPE interventions include IPE courses, events, and fellowships. The majority of studies provided favorable results for IPE. Infrastructure and institutional support is critical to successful IPE implementation. More research is needed utilizing rigorous designs to assess the longitudinal efficacy of IPE interventions.