Interprofessional Authorship in Critical Care Journals

Interprofessional education and patient care have been endorsed by accrediting bodies because interprofessional health care teams improve outcomes while decreasing health care costs. Thus, there has been an increased focus in educating health professional students collectively. The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency of interprofessional authorship of original research published in high-impact critical care journals. Physicians constituted 76.2% of authors, followed by 10.5% PhDs and 3.0% nonphysician health professionals. From 2001 to 2011, the frequency of physician and nonphysician authors increased significantly (P < .01 for both). Interprofessional authorship also increased, from 49.9% to 64.3% of published articles (P < .0001). The enhanced attention on interprofessional education and patient care has translated into an increase in interprofessional authorship for original research articles published in critical care journals. However, collaboration appears to be primarily between physicians and PhDs, not other health care professionals.