Characterizing research about interprofessional education within pharmacy

Abstract

Objective. To determine how interprofessional education (IPE) in pharmacy has been studied, namely which disciplines have engaged in IPE research initiatives, the research methodologies that have been used, and what journals have published in this area. Findings. In the 145 IPE studies included in the review, the authors represented 13 different disciplines (3.261.5 disciplines per study). Pharmacy authors most commonly published with co-authors from nursing, medicine, and health management and support and most frequently served as first author or last author. The IPE activities involved 4.0 student disciplines (SD 5 1.9) and 211.8 students (SD 5 280.1), and most commonly included nursing (n 5 104, 71.7%), medicine (n 5 102, 70.3%), and health management and support students (n 5 50, 34.5%). Most studies did not include an author from each student discipline involved in the IPE (n 5 88, 60.7%). Further, a majority of studies used nonrandomized groupings (n 5 103, 71.0%) with quantitative data (n 5 74, 51.0%) and most were published in an interprofessional journal (n 5 65, 44.8%) or pharmacy-specific journal (n 5 45, 31.0%). Summary. Pharmacists have increased their engagement in IPE research as demonstrated by the number of articles published and authorship order position. However, mismatches between student disciplines and author disciplines on published papers elucidate opportunities to foster collaborations that position students for success within a collaborative healthcare environment.