Objective: Simulation exercises are meant to provide an opportunity for health care workers to improve teamwork and develop clinical skills, among other goals. The objective of this systematic review was to determine whether simulated interdisciplinary activities in the health care or clinical setting improve interprofessional collaboration within health care teams that include respiratory therapists.
Methods: A systematic literature search of PubMed, EMBASE and CINAHL was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses reporting guideline to find relevant articles using both MeSH terms and free text. Filters were applied to include English-language studies; studies published within the last 10 years (2011-2021), and studies involving human participants. Studies were excluded if they did not assess the effects of simulation on aspects of teamwork, if participants were students, if teams did not include respiratory therapists, or if the training did not involve a simulated experience in a clinical setting. The search identified 312 articles, 75 of which were advanced to full-text review. Of those 75 articles, 62 were eliminated for not measuring teamwork in their outcomes. Two articles were excluded for being published before 2011, and one was eliminated for poor methodological quality. A risk of bias assessment using standardized qualitative and quantitative appraisal checklists was conducted on each of the remaining 10 studies selected for inclusion.
Results: A total of 10 studies met the inclusion criteria for this review (eight prospective, pre/post-test studies and two prospective observational studies). Randomization and participant/researcher blinding were not present in the majority of the studies and reporting bias was also found to be a concern throughout the literature. However, all of the studies noted increased teamwork scores post-intervention, though they differed in the tools used to evaluate this outcome.
Discussion: Collectively, the studies included in this review demonstrate that interprofessional simulation experiences including respiratory therapists enhance teamwork. The various tools used to assess change in teamwork had evidence of validity; however, studies varied in their outcomes measured, making quantitative analysis inappropriate. There are challenges involved in creating and assessing these simulations, particularly when performed within a clinical environment, which make it difficult to fully remove bias from the study design. It is unclear if the teamwork improvement can strictly be attributed to the simulation intervention or in part due to the general development of team members' competencies throughout the research period. Additionally, the permanency of the effects cannot be evaluated based on the studies included and could be an area for future research.
Conclusion: Despite the limited number and methodological precision of studies included in this review along with the differing outcome evaluation methods, the authors conclude that positive teamwork improvement results are generalizable and agree with the broader base of research of the effectiveness of simulation on teambuilding.
Keywords: High Fidelity Simulation Training; Interdisciplinary Communication; Interprofessional Education; collaboration; health care staff; respiratory; team.