International global health education for doctor of physical therapy students: a scoping review

Abstract

Background The topic of international global health (IGH) education for Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students in the United States (US) has become more popular in recent years. Despite the expanding interest and wide variability in programming, little has been published to establish educational best practices for IGH for DPT students. Objectives The purpose of this scoping review was to identify, organize, and methodically review existing publications since 2010 in IGH education for DPT students. Methods Using the scoping review format based on the PRISMA ScR checklist, we searched the professional literature for all levels of evidence from the following databases: PubMed, Embase (embase.com), and CINAHL (EBSCOhost), with hand searches of key reference lists. The texts were English only and pertained to both IGH and US-based DPT programs. The researchers initially identified 592 studies; 27 met inclusion criteria for data extraction after eliminating duplicates. Results The primary purposes of IGH in these academic programs included one or more of the following: service learning, clinical education, cultural immersion, and research. No one educational program was identified to be more effective than others. Conclusions The results demonstrated significant breadth and variability of IGH education for DPT students. Future studies should explore the efficacy and efficiency of program types using established outcome measures to maximize students’ clinical and emotional preparedness for IGH work and enable comparisons across programs.