Professional development in clinical facilitation: An integrated review

Background: Clinical facilitators have an essential role in the development of safe and committed nurses worldwide, but the approach to provision of professional development to help clinical facilitators reach potential is informal, inconsistent and not always relevant to their learning needs. It is important to examine the reported role tensions to generate solutions to the problems and include these teachings in professional development opportunities for clinical facilitators. Method: An integrative literature review was undertaken intending to understand and collate the tensions, constraints, as well as supports, and best practice in the role. Results: The review identified 40 relevant studies. Conclusion: The identified studies highlighted challenges such as lack of role clarity and lack of evaluation of professional development approaches, which hamper best practice; as well as exemplary practices, such as peer-to-peer learning; which has potential to advance the sub-specialty of clinical facilitation. © 2020 Australian College of Nursing Ltd