Systematic review of interventions to enhance preceptors' role in undergraduate health student clinical learning.

Aim: Evaluate interventions to prepare preceptors for their role in undergraduate health student clinical education.

Background: Preceptor training and development are crucial to quality clinical learning experiences for undergraduate health students. The efficacy of education interventions designed for preceptors and use of reliable, valid outcome measures are unclear.

Design: A systematic literature review informed by PRISMA Guidelines.

Methods: Major databases CINAHL, Medline and Google Scholar were searched between January 2010 and November 2021. 1253 articles were initially retrieved. Removal of duplicates and screening by title, abstract and keywords yielded 156 papers. Twenty-one papers fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were assessed using an adapted 'Critical Appraisal Checklist for Reports of Educational Interventions' and the New World Kirkpatrick Model.

Results: Most interventions were developed for the nursing profession and evaluated using pre-post-test (86%) or post-test only (5%). Two studies were considered high quality. Most studies (81%) reported positive short-term impact on preceptor knowledge, skills, attitudes and confidence. Two thirds (62%) of included studies measured preceptor behaviour change. No study measured impact related to quality of health care. Small sample sizes limited inferential analyses. Psychometric testing of tools to measure preceptor outcomes was inconsistent and validity and reliability were not reported in most studies.

Conclusions: Structure and content of interventions were diverse and lacked rigour in outcome measurement. Most interventions demonstrated some positive impact on preceptor development. Objective measures determining longer term impact or how enhanced preceptor development translated into quality clinical student learning support was lacking. Future research should consider how best to measure the impact of educational interventions on broader outcomes such as quality of client care.