Critical Incident Techniques and Reflection in Nursing and Health Professions Education: a systematic narrative review

Background : The terms Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and Reflection are widely used but often not fully explained, resulting in ambiguity. Purpose: To map and describe existing approaches to recording or using critical incidents and reflection in nursing and health professions literature over the last decade, identifying challenges and facilitating factors, strengths and weaknesses and discussing relevance for nursing education. Methods: A systematic narrative review was undertaken. Medline and CINAHL were searched using MeSH terms, returning 223 papers (2006-17). After exclusions, 41 were reviewed. Results: Papers were categorised into three areas: those describing the development of an original tool or model, those where critical incidents or events were used as learning tools, and personal reflections on incidents. Conclusions: Benefits have been identified in all areas. More attention is needed to the pedagogy of reflection, and the role of educators in reflection.