Reflection and Reflective Practice in General Practice: A Systematic Review Exploring and Evaluating Key Variables Influencing Reflective Practice

Background: Reflective practice is an essential part of general practice involving the trainee and the practitioners and the mechanism to promote this is the creation of portfolios to monitor evidence of reflective practices needed as part of licensing and revalidation in the United Kingdom

Aim: Evaluate the existing evidence about reflection and reflective practice models, utility, quality, significance, and implication for practice in General practice.

Methodology: Systematic databases search include Medline/PubMed, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, ERIC, and google scholar, limited to the last twenty years from January 2000 to January 2020.

Results: There were eight observational studies with 236 patients with over 90 percent of evidence that reflective practice is a tool for learning and development with poor evidence on the scale of measurement of reflective practice. No evidence for the effect of reflection on patient care. All evidence is level 2- with a grade C recommendation.

Conclusion: This systematic review of findings from eight studies of reflective practice in general practice. Relevant literature supports refection as a learning tool and process for mandatory assessment of performance and appraisal. In contrast, there is an overwhelming distaste for the current structure of e-portfolio for written reflection. There is no evidence for the effect of reflection on patient care and currently no standard scale of measurement to assess the quality of reflection in general practice.