A Scoping Review of Interprofessional Education for Preparing Health Professional Students In Home Based Practice

Background and Purpose: Home-based practice delivers essential health and social care in people’s own homes, an increasingly important site for supporting aging, chronic disease management, and social inclusion. These services intersect directly with social justice and democratic participation: safe, coordinated home care helps people remain part of their communities and exercise autonomy. The home environment poses distinctive clinical, ethical, safety, and resource challenges and opportunities, requiring effective interprofessional collaboration. Interprofessional education (IPE) is a pedagogical strategy intended to prepare students from multiple health professions to work collaboratively and deliver better client outcomes. This scoping review aimed to (1) describe how IPE has been delivered to prepare entry‑level health professional students for home‑based practice; (2) summarize the types of delivery, instructional content, clinical contexts, evaluation approaches, and reported outcomes of these educational initiatives; and (3) pinpoint evidence gaps to guide future curriculum development and research.

Methods: We followed Arksey and O’Malley’s five‑stage scoping framework with JBI guidance and reported per PRISMA‑ScR. A structured search through October 2024 across APA PsycINFO, CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane identified peer‑reviewed English‑language studies of IPE involving students from two or more professions with an explicit home‑based practice focus. Two reviewers independently screened 481 unique records and 69 full-texts; 55 articles met inclusion criteria. Data was iteratively charted and double‑checked by the team for study characteristics, educational approaches, instructional content, measures, and significant findings.

Results: Fifty‑five articles (published 1975–2025; >50% since 2020) met inclusion criteria. Most originated from North America and represented a broad range of professions, most commonly medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and social work. The most frequently used educational methods were interprofessional home visits (65.5%), instructional sessions/workshops (61.8%), and simulation (25.5%); online learning and service learning were less common. Clinical contexts predominantly addressed older adults and chronic conditions. Instructional content typically emphasized interprofessional teamwork, health management for older adults, communication skills, and conducting home assessments. Study designs were mainly program evaluations, pre/post cohorts, and qualitative studies. Validated instruments targeting IPE and aging constructs were common, though many studies included surveys developed by authors for that purpose. Twenty‑four studies reported statistically significant educational, interprofessional, or clinical outcomes. Notably, multiple studies showed improvements in role understanding, attitudes toward collaboration, and self‑rated interprofessional competencies, particularly following home‑visit and simulation experiences. A small subset reported positive client outcomes.

Conclusions and Implications: IPE has been implemented via diverse approaches to prepare students for home‑based practice, yielding positive interprofessional learning outcomes, with growing evidence that interprofessional home visiting and simulation can improve teamwork competencies and sometimes, client outcomes. However, home-based IPE necessitates broadening to other settings and populations. Future research may employ mixed modalities (including online) and rigorous experimental and longitudinal designs that link educational interventions to concrete home‑practice competencies and population‑level and systems outcomes. This study synthesizes evidence that links home‑based care, education, and interprofessional collaboration, to democratic values such as equity, participation, dignity, and community growth, and identifies actionable research and curricular priorities to advance social work science and justice.