Interprofessional team collaboration (IPC), in which individuals from diverse disciplines such as medicine and psychology learn and work together, are considered critical for the effective provision of patient care. To be effective, professionals need to have basic knowledge and skills related to team functioning. Such preparation begins with attending to interprofessional education (IPE). Accordingly, there has been an increased integration within higher education of interprofessional learning teams to prepare students for the real-life situations that they face in the workplace. This abstract presents a scoping review that is a comprehensive synthesis of the various factors associated with interprofessional team collaboration (IPC) to identify those that must be addressed in IPE. When interdisciplinary professionals form a team to engage in decision-making about patient care, adverse events can be reduced, and comprehensive care can be enhanced. Despite the evidence of how IPC is effective, it can be hampered for various reasons. Scoping reviews have identified factors such as nurses’ and physicians’ attitudes toward collaboration, ability to communicate, and education background. Existing scoping reviews have specified a narrow scope of factors, exclude specific healthcare settings, include only one type of research method, and focus primarily on doctors and nurses. The present scoping review identifies the broadest number of factors that have been included in any single, or even combination of, other types of reviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of the various ways in which IPC in different health environments can be impaired and enhanced. Given the broad topic of focus, and the goal of identifying gaps to be addressed in IPE, a scoping review is a valid method of research for this work. Moreover, this paper outlines characteristics of these studies to provide context as to when and where this research was conducted, who the participants were, and how data were collected to understand the current state of the research. The focus of this paper is on secondary results from this study. Specifically, we summarized researchers’ recommendations for practice and future research. Using two methodological frameworks, we created and followed a protocol to synthesize empirical studies on our topic. First, clearly developed and inclusive search criteria were specified to find relevant studies. We located 34136 abstracts; a total of 218 met the inclusion criteria. Second, the variety of factors were classified broadly as occurring at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels. These factors were further grouped as individual: attitudes, gender, expertise, personality characteristics, and professional identity; interpersonal: communication, coordination, hierarchy, leadership, role definition, shared understanding, team characteristics; and organizational: evaluation and feedback, organizational structure/culture, procedures, and resources. Most studies consisted of doctors and nurses, and about half included various types of therapists. Despite the promotion of allied health across health settings, it is surprising that counsellors and mental health workers are the least represented in the research. Many teams consisted of 1-3 types of disciplines, likely because smaller team sizes are more feasible to schedule and allow more time for each member to participate. In summary, when considering the extensive number of reasons why team decision-making may be challenging, our review suggests that it is helpful for IPE to target individual, interpersonal, or organizational characteristics.

Keywords: Interprofessional Education, Interdisciplinary, Decision-Making, Teamwork, Collaboration.