A Mapping Review of Teamwork Training and Assessment in Pharmacy Education

Objective. To explore how teamwork is taught (ie, skills and format), measured, and assessed within pharmacy education.Methods. A mapping review was conducted to provide a selection of articles to specifically capture how teamwork is taught, measured, and assessed within pharmacy education.Results. Of the 114 references retrieved, 18 studies from 17 schools or colleges of pharmacy met the inclusion criteria for review and data abstraction. Ten of the studies (56%) described how teamwork training was integrated into courses while the other eight studies described workshops, clinical rotations, modules, interprofessional simulations, long-term projects, and retreats on teamwork. Learning activities involving patient cases were the most common teaching method described (n=12, 67%). For the teamwork principles taught, all articles included leadership training or evaluating leadership skills in their program. To assess teamwork, 17 (94%) of the programs used students’ self-reported measures of skills and behaviors, attitudes, and/or knowledge. Fourteen studies (78%) demonstrated improvements in students’ attitude-related outcomes, 13 (72%) studies demonstrated improvements in skills-related outcomes, and six studies (33%) described improvements in knowledge related outcomes.Conclusion. Teamwork is regarded as an integral component of being an effective health care professional. While teamwork is common in pharmacy curricula, few studies describe strategies for teaching effective teamwork strategies to pharmacy students. The articles reviewed revealed a wide range of approaches to teaching, measuring, and assessing teamwork skills within pharmacy education. This review highlights an opportunity to further explore and identify the teamwork skills that are requisite for success in pharmacy practice, which could then be supported by standardized teamwork training programs and assessments.