A systematic review of reflective practice questionnaires and scales for healthcare professionals: a narrative synthesis

ABSTRACT

Reflective Practice (RP) is considered a crucial component of personal and professional learning. RP is regarded as a way that professionals learn from experience to understand and enhance their practice by responding appropriately to self-reflection. Despite playing a crucial role in healthcare settings, there is little agreement on how to assess RP. This study aims to systematically review self-rating instruments that assess RP in healthcare professionals. Peer review articles assessing RP in healthcare professionals using a self-rating instrument, published in English between 1998 and 2018 from PubMed, CINAHL, and PsychInfo databases, were considered for inclusion. Eighteen papers were appraised, the strengths and weaknesses of the measures were discussed in accordance with an adapted critical appraisal checklist. In general, all self-report instruments included in this review were potentially generalisable to healthcare professionals or health science programmes with some adaptation. Given the limited evidence for other measurement scales, the Reflective Questionnaire and Self-Reflection and Insight Scale are recommended for measuring RP within healthcare settings. Future research developing a standardised tool for the review of mixed-method, heterogeneous, questionnaire studies is strongly recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Reflective practice
• reflection
• measure
• questionnaire
• scale
• healthcare professional

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplementary material for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Su Min Ooi

Dr. Su Min Ooi is a clinical psychologist who has more than 10 years of clinical experience in healthcare settings. She has developed interests around clinical supervision and reflective practice when she underwent her doctorate training at University of East Anglia (UEA).

Paul Fisher

Dr. Paul Fisher is a Clinical Psychologist, Senior Clinical Lecturer and the Programme Director of the Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) training at UEA. His teaching and research interests include professional practice issues for Clinical psychologists such as formulation and reflective practice. He has expertise in the use of qualitative research methods, and this often informs his research.

Siân Coker

Professor Siân Coker is the Deputy Head of Department Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies at UEA. Her research interests include perfectionism and its’ role in the management of a number of health conditions. She is also a research enthusiast who has significantly contributed in the teaching of research methods, ethical practice, and ethics in research on the doctoral programme in Clinical Psychology.