The impact of longitudinal integrated clerkships on patient care: a qualitative systematic review

ABSTRACT

Background

Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LIC) are a relatively novel type of clinical placement model within medical education, particularly within the UK. The research on LICs primarily focuses on the impact of the model on students, tutors, communities, and organisations. The impact of LICs on patients has not yet been adequately synthesised. This systematic review aims to fill this gap by examining empirical evidence regarding the impact of LICs on patient care using quality-of-care measures, namely, health process measures and outcome measures.

Methods

A systematic search was conducted in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Academic Search Premier, Education Research Complete, CINAHL Complete, ERIC, Web of Science, and Scopus. Two reviewers independently conducted the screening process for study selection. Results across studies were analysed and summarised by thematic analysis.

Results

The reviewers screened 1632 records. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria following a full-text review, from which four themes were created. Three themes describe health process measures, including: 1) Advocacy within healthcare system, 2) Provision of supplementary and personalised care, and 3) Providing companionship with care. One theme described a health outcome measure: Therapeutic Alliance.

Conclusion

Current evidence demonstrates an overall beneficial impact of LICs on patient health processes and outcome measures. However, the available evidence is weak and limited. Further research is required to illuminate the true impact of LICs on patient health.

KEYWORDS:

• Clinical clerkship
• education
• medical
• outcome and process assessment
• health care
• students
• medical
• longitudinal integrated clerkship

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Fiona Ware, the librarian, who supported us with the creation of the search strategy and the selection of databases for this review.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.