INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION: A SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS

J. Regino¹, C.J. Escuadra¹, M. Sy²

¹University of Santo Tomas, College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Manila, Philippines, ²University of the Philippines, National Teachers Training Center for Health Professions, Manila, Philippines

Background: Interprofessional education as emphasized by the World Health Organization is an enabler for students to be a collaborative practice-ready health workforce. As it was proposed to be a helpful strategy to improve the efficiency of work and help in the shortage of health professionals, a vast number of publications in Interprofessional Education has been generated in different document types in the past years.

Purpose: This research aims to examine the evolution of research trends in Interprofessional Education. It also seeks to investigate the journal-wise distribution of research to Interprofessional Education.

Methods: This scientometric study systematically mined health and social sciences-related publications from Web of Science using the keywords “Interprofessional education”, “Interprofessional relations”, “Interprofessional learning”, “Interprofessional outcomes” and ``Interdisciplinary study”. Results were further refined to only include English articles and review articles. The analysis was divided into publication, citation, collaboration, and text-co-occurrence network analysis. Web of Science and VOSViewer were used for data management, analysis, and visualization.

Results: A total of 5,661 research articles and reviews related to Interprofessional education were found from 1998. The countries with the most publications about the topic were the USA, Canada, England, Australia, and Switzerland. Affiliations with the most publications were the University of Toronto, University of Geneva, University of California System, University of London, and Harvard University. The total average citation for publications is 14.62 with an overall H-index of 99. Test occurrence analyses revealed four clusters of keywords which include: (1) different theories and study design in interprofessional education (2) readiness of health science students in Interprofessional education (3) different types of clients/population for application of learners in interprofessional education (4) psychometric and assessment tools. Moreover, it was found that publications involved different health professions in their data gathering and analysis like physical therapy, occupational therapy, medical doctor, nurse, pharmacist, speech-language pathologists, and others.

Conclusions: The study revealed the increasing interest in interprofessional education worldwide through publications and citation indicators. The topics discussed were also found to have continuously evolved and expanded from theories and assessments to different strategies for the application of interprofessional education. This study provided an overview of the scientific output, trends, and research topics in the field of Interprofessional education.

Implications: Results may serve as valuable guidance for researchers, practitioners, educators, and policymakers to bridge existing knowledge structures and current trends.

Funding acknowledgements: No funding agency

Keywords:
Interprofessional education
Interprofessional relations
Interprofessional learning

Topics:
Education: clinical
Education: continuing professional development
Education

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: Ethical approval will not be required for this study as it does not involve the direct involvement of research participants.