What Educational Strategies Exist for Developing Therapeutic Alliance Skills in Healthcare Students: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT

Background

Therapeutic alliance (TA) is a key determinant of treatment outcomes across health professions. Educating health students on this concept has gained increasing attention; however, no prior scoping review has mapped the educational interventions used to develop TA competencies. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the educational interventions designed to develop TA competencies among health profession students.

Methods

We searched PubMed and Web of Science databases up to February 2025. Eligible studies included any design focusing on health profession students and reporting educational interventions aimed at developing TA‐related competencies.

Findings

In total, 13,192 records were screened, and 327 included. Publications increased substantially over the past decade, particularly in nursing and medical education. Thirteen categories of educational interventions were identified, with interactive workshops, reflective practices and feedback or mentoring being the most common. Most studies adopted multimodal approaches, especially targeting empathy and communication. In contrast, other relational dimensions, including trust, respect, congruence, caring and emotional intelligence, were addressed much less frequently. Only 12 studies explicitly named ‘therapeutic alliance’ as the primary training objective. Considerable methodological heterogeneity in intervention design, duration and outcomes limited comparability across studies.

Implications

Despite growing interest in teaching TA, notable asymmetries exist in the targeted competencies and the populations studied. Future research should prioritise underexplored competencies, employ more robust study designs and contribute to the development of shared frameworks for teaching TA. These findings highlight a critical opportunity to strengthen TA education and better prepare students for the relational dimensions of clinical practice.

1. Background

The concept of therapeutic alliance (TA) has been variously defined and referenced by different terms in the literature, such as ‘working alliance’, ‘helping alliance’ or ‘therapeutic relationship’ [1, 2]. The TA is ‘a trusting connection and rapport established between therapist and client through collaboration, communication, therapist empathy, and mutual understanding and respect’ [3]. The concept of TA has become increasingly popular across various health, medical and social professions, including nursing, social work, medicine, psychiatry and physiotherapy [1], resulting in a growing body of literature on this topic. For example, on PubMed, the number of articles on these topics increased from 50 per year in 1999 to nearly 300 per year in 2019 [1, 4].

This growing interest in TA stems from the observed positive association between TA and treatment outcomes. Several meta‐analyses have demonstrated this correlation across various types of psychotherapy [1, 5, 6, 7]. In medicine, a strong patient–therapist relationship is associated with better adherence, satisfaction and quality of life [8]. In physiotherapy, TA positively influences several clinical outcomes, including pain [9, 10, 11], adherence [9, 12], satisfaction and perceived treatment efficacy, as well as mental health, quality of life and functional abilities [9]. A better understanding of this phenomenon not only helps optimise therapy effects but also prevents the deterioration of the alliance with patients, ultimately improving clinical outcomes.

As such, TA is a central concept for ensuring comprehensive and effective patient care. For several years, psychological research has emphasised the need to educate students on the TA, a competency considered at least as important as the ability to perform specific therapies [13]. There are strong arguments for integrating the TA into the curriculum to train psychotherapists to deliver high‐quality care [14]. However, for some professions, such as physiotherapy, the importance of TA has only recently been highlighted [15, 16].

Conceptually, the TA is widely understood through a tripartite framework, including agreement on therapeutic goals, agreement on the means to achieve them and the development of a positive therapeutic bond. For this review, we distinguish between TA‐related skills, understood as specific teachable or observable abilities, and TA‐related competencies, understood as the broader capacity to integrate these skills with relevant attitudes, knowledge and behaviours in clinical encounters. Previous reviews have identified several skills associated with TA competency, including empathy, collaboration, communication, trust, respect, responsiveness and active patient involvement [12].

These skills, which contribute to TA competencies, are also discussed in the broader literature on non‐technical skills. While TA and non‐technical skills are not interchangeable, similar skills are used in both. Non‐technical skills encompass a wider range of cognitive, social and interpersonal skills, including teamwork, decision‐making, leadership and situational awareness [17], whereas the TA specifically concerns the relational and collaborative connection between clinician and patient. Notably, a lack of non‐technical skills was identified as a significant factor contributing to preventable incidents in healthcare, despite mastery of technical skills [18]. Although training systems for non‐technical skills are increasingly integrated into educational programmes [17], they are often still given less emphasis than technical skills [18].

Strengthening the teaching of TA‐related skills and competencies within healthcare professional training is therefore essential. Identifying educational approaches that effectively foster these skills would allow training institutions to optimise their curricula and better prepare students for clinical practice. However, to date, no systematic or scoping review has comprehensively examined educational interventions for teaching TA skills and competencies. Therefore, gaining a clear understanding of the different types of interventions used to foster these abilities is necessary to ensure that future healthcare professionals are equipped not only with technical expertise but also with life skills that improve patient outcomes. This review aims to address this gap and guide future educational practice.

By conducting a scoping review of existing educational interventions designed to develop TA skills in health profession students, this study aims to answer the following question: What educational interventions exist that can help develop skills related to the TA among health profession students?

2. Methods

This scoping review protocol was developed following the PRISMA‐ScR, Lely et al.'s guidelines [19] and the JBI framework for scoping reviews [20]. The protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework on 8 March 2025 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/87P96).

2.1. Eligibility Criteria

To be included in the analysis, studies had to focus on educational interventions designed to develop TA‐related skills in health students. The classification of health students used in this review was based on the regulated health professions listed in the French Public Health Code (Fourth Part), including medical, dental, midwifery, pharmacy, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy and radiography students. Additional categories, such as physician assistants, psychologists, dietitians, veterinarians, osteopaths and social workers, were also included. The interventions could include any educational approach, such as simulations, role‐playing, lectures and simulated patients. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed‐methods studies written in French or English were selected to explore a broad range of data. Studies that did not specifically target health students, deliver educational interventions (e.g., those focused on patients or educators) or aim to develop the TA and its components were excluded from the analysis. These criteria are summarised in Table 1.

TABLE 1.

Summary of inclusion and exclusion criteria to be applied to the literature search.

	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Population	Health students: Medical Dental Midwifery Pharmacy Physician assistant Psychology Nursing Physical therapy Occupational therapy Dietetics Associated health professions Osteopath Veterinary Radiography Social work	Not a student
Intervention	All educational approaches (simulations, role‐play, lectures, simulated patients, etc.)
Concept	Studies focusing on educational interventions aimed at developing TA‐related competencies, skills or attitudes: Agreement on goals/tasks Problem identification Perceived good relationship Friendliness Empathy Caring Warmth Honesty Courtesy Non‐verbal communication Listening skills Clear explanation Clear information Positive feedback Expectation Responsiveness Holistic practice Emotional intelligence Trust Respect Active involvement	Studies not focusing on educational interventions aimed at developing TA‐related competencies
Study details	Qualitative, quantitative or mixed studies

2.2. Information Sources and Search Strategy

To identify potentially relevant articles, PubMed and Web of Science, accessible through the authors' institution, were searched up to February 2025. We excluded grey literature and focused solely on peer‐reviewed articles. We followed the recommendations of the Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS) to design the search strategy [21]. First, we translated the research question into three main concepts: students in healthcare professions, educational interventions and TA concepts. Then, these concepts were combined with Boolean operators. Building on previous studies and tools, such as HeTop and Mesh Inserm, we expanded the key concepts by including synonyms and truncations to capture variations of the keywords (see Data S2). Finally, a language filter was applied, limiting the search to English and French. The search strategies were developed through team discussions and with assistance from an experienced librarian at the Libraries and Open Science Support Unit (BAPSO) at the University of Grenoble‐Alpes. The final search strategies for PubMed and WOS are presented in Data S3. Data extraction, duplicate removal and data selection were conducted on the reference management software Rayyan.

2.3. Study Selection

Two reviewers (N.S. and M.F.‐B.) independently screened article titles and abstracts against the eligibility criteria. Full‐text retrieval and data extraction were conducted by three researchers (N.S., M.F.‐B. and L.D.). Any disagreements were discussed between the researchers to resolve discrepancies.

2.4. Data Extraction

Data shown in Table 2 were extracted from the included papers based on the research aims and the Cochrane Handbook [22]. Missing information was coded as ‘Not Reported’ and ambiguous or unclear data as ‘Unclear’.

TABLE 2.

Data extraction tool.

Category	Data to collect
Study details	First author
	Year of publication
	Country
	Aim
Design	For example, randomised controlled trial, observational study and crossover
Participant characteristics	Health discipline of student population
Educational interventions	Type of intervention (modules, simulations, workshops, etc.)
	Length of intervention
	Frequency
Comparison	Definition of ‘control’ group (no intervention, minimally active comparator, etc.)
Outcome measures	Therapeutic alliance skills
Results	Key findings

The review team included researchers with backgrounds in medical education, physiotherapy, psychology and TA research. These backgrounds informed the development of the eligibility criteria and the interpretation of TA‐related skills. Because the boundaries between TA, relational competencies and broader non‐technical skills are not always clearly defined, potentially ambiguous classifications were discussed among the research team. Disagreements regarding study inclusion, skill classification or intervention categorisation were resolved through discussion and consensus.

3. Findings

3.1. Selection of Sources of Evidence

After duplicates were removed, a total of 13,192 records were identified from database searches (Figure 1). Based on titles and abstracts screening, 12,696 records were excluded, resulting in 496 full‐text articles retrieved and assessed for eligibility. After full‐text screening, 327 articles were included in this review (Data S4).

FIGURE 1.

Flowchart of included studies.

3.2. Characteristics of Sources of Evidence

In total, 327 studies were included in this scoping review, published from 1977 to 2025. The complete dataset extracted from these studies is provided in Data S1.

Most publications (77%, n = 253) were published between 2015 and 2025, with 37% (n = 122) in the past 3 years, reflecting a growing academic interest in this topic. These studies were conducted across more than 45 different countries across the six continents, with the United States being the most represented (34.5%, n = 113), followed by the United Kingdom (5.8%, n = 19), South Korea (4.9%, n = 16) and then Spain and Australia both at 4.6% (n = 15).

Across studies, a wide variety of designs were used. Most studies used a quantitative paradigm (67.5%, n = 221). A significant proportion were mixed in nature (19.2%, n = 63) and a minority used a qualitative paradigm (10%, n = 33). Quasiexperimental studies were most common (40%), with the most prevalent design being the single‐group pretest–post‐test design (23% of all studies). Twenty‐three per cent of the studies used strictly observational methods, and 16% were experimental. Non‐empirical, qualitative and mixed‐methods studies comprised the remainder (24.4%).

Among the experimental studies, RCTs represented a notable proportion of the included literature. Most reported improvements in at least one TA‐related outcome, commonly empathy, communication or related relational skills. Comparison conditions varied considerably. Many studies compared an educational intervention with no intervention, usual teaching or a traditional curriculum, while a smaller number directly compared different educational formats or components, such as simulation versus lectures or observation, peers versus actors or standardised patients, live versus recorded delivery, technology‐supported versus conventional simulation, feedback versus no feedback or combined versus single‐component training. Although active, experiential and feedback‐based approaches often showed greater improvements than passive or usual teaching, findings from direct comparisons between active approaches were mixed and did not consistently favour one format. Intervention content, outcome measures and follow‐up durations also varied substantially (Data S1), limiting conclusions about the relative effectiveness of specific pedagogical strategies.

Regarding the target populations, most studies focused on medical students (54%, n = 178) followed by nursing students (31%, n = 101) and pharmacy students (13%, n = 41). Other health professions were less frequently represented.

3.3. Educational Interventions Used

Due to the substantial variability in the interventions used, the interventions were grouped into 13 pedagogical strategy categories, as detailed in Table 3.

TABLE 3.

Types of educational interventions targeting therapeutic alliance skills.

Intervention types	Description
Standardised patient simulations	Standardised patient simulation involves trained individuals—whether actors or real patients—playing roles in clinical scenarios.
Virtual reality or virtual patient simulation	Experience in 3D immersive environments or interactive digital patients that allow the simulation of real clinical situations in a safe and repeatable manner.
Role‐play with peers	Simulating clinical scenarios with peers.
Mindfulness or meditation‐based training	It uses mindfulness and meditation practices to improve self‐awareness, emotional regulation and empathetic communication, among other things.
Art‐based education	Uses creative activities such as painting, music, writing, artwork analysis (visual observation and poetry), storytelling and film viewing. These activities allow for a more emotional and personal exploration of clinical and human situations.
Drawing or visual tools	This category involves the use of visual tools, such as drawing, sketching, mind map and other visual representations, to facilitate learning and reflection. Visual tools help students organise and express their thoughts, explore complex concepts and enhance understanding through visual means.
Online module or E‐learning	Delivers theoretical knowledge via online platforms, allowing flexible and self‐paced learning.
Blended learning	Training combining online and in‐person sessions, allowing students to learn at their own pace while participating in practical activities in person. It integrates theoretical modules accessible online and practical sessions for applying concepts in real‐world contexts.
Didactic lecture	Lecturing or theoretical exposition structuring the basic knowledge on a subject.
Interactive workshop	This is a teaching method that encourages active student engagement through practical activities such as brainstorming, problem‐solving and group discussions. The discussions can take place in different formats, adapted to the educational objective: fishbowl, large group or small group discussion.
Reflective practice	Reflective practice encourages students to actively reflect on their learning experiences, fostering a critical perspective on lived experiences. It may include reflective writing, journals, self‐analysis and group discussions to analyse and learn from real‐life situations.
Feedback or mentoring	Feedback and mentoring sessions provide personalised or group feedback after practical activities, allowing students to continuously improve their performance.
Peer learning or interprofessional collaboration	Collaborative learning, conducted by and with peers, or in interprofessional contexts, allows students to exchange their knowledge and skills to solve clinical problems, while cooperating to improve the understanding of each other's roles.

As shown in Figure 2, among the 327 studies included in this scoping review, interactive workshops were the most frequently employed strategy (54%, n = 177), followed closely by reflective practice (44%, n = 145) and feedback or mentoring (39%, n = 126). Most interventions combined several educational approaches, averaging three modalities per intervention. Overall, the distribution of interventions favoured in‐person, interactive and reflective teaching modalities.

FIGURE 2.

Frequency of educational interventions used across studies.

Most interventions combined several educational approaches, averaging three modalities per intervention.

3.4. Therapeutic Alliance Skills Targeted

Among the 327 studies included in this scoping review, a wide range of TA skills were addressed, although not with equal frequency. The most targeted skill was empathy, reported in 229 studies (70%). Communication was explicitly addressed in 172 studies (53%), often alongside empathy. These two skills were by far the most frequently emphasised, forming the backbone of TA training. In contrast, other skills received much less attention. Emotional intelligence was targeted in 46 studies (14%) while trust was targeted in only 14 (4%). Notably, studies measuring changes in TA rather than its subcomponents were scarce, comprising only 12/327 (4%). The term therapeutic alliance was rarely used explicitly in the included studies. Instead, related concepts such as ‘building relationship’, ‘doctor–patient relationship’ or ‘rapport building’ were more commonly employed. This is shown in Figure 3.

FIGURE 3.

Therapeutic skills targeted in the included studies.

3.5. Synthesis of Results

Overall, this scoping review synthesised 327 studies that examined educational interventions to develop TA skills among health professions students. The studies were published between 1977 and 2025, with a noticeable increase in publications in the last 5 years. Most studies were conducted in the United States (34.67%, n = 113) and primarily involved medical and nursing students (54%, n = 178 and 31%, n = 101, respectively). A wide variety of study designs were employed, with a predominance of quasiexperimental pretest–post‐test designs. A wide variety of interventions were reported, classified into 13 types, ranging from experiential simulations to online modules and interprofessional collaboration. In terms of TA skills, empathy and communication skills were by far the most frequently targeted. Other skills, such as trust, respect, congruence, caring and emotional intelligence, were addressed in far fewer studies. The findings also revealed that no standardised approach has yet emerged as dominant in the field.

4. Implications

This scoping review contributes to the growing literature on the teaching of TA in health professions education by mapping the landscape of educational interventions used to support the development of TA‐related skills. To date, no prior review has explored how these skills are taught across such a broad range of health disciplines. By filling this gap, the present study offers a foundation for advancing both pedagogical practice and research in this area.

4.1. Interpretation and Implications

The results of this scoping review highlight several essential insights into how TA skills are addressed in health professions education. First, there is an imbalance in the skills developed for TA competency. Empathy and communication were the most frequently addressed, reflecting their recognition and integration into many training programmes. In contrast, other relational dimensions relevant to TA [12], such as trust, respect, congruence and caring, were rarely explored, leaving important gaps in educational research. This imbalance could limit students' preparation for the full complexity of real‐world clinical interactions, which rely not only on what is said (communication) but also on how it is perceived, coconstructed and emotionally understood. It also reflects the inherent difficulty of teaching and assessing deeper relational dimensions, such as trust or respect. These dimensions are less tangible, more complex to operationalise and therefore often bypassed in curricula, despite being central to the patient experience.

There is an imbalance in the skills developed for TA competency.

Second, there is a large heterogeneity of both educational strategies and interventions. Most studies opted for pedagogical strategies addressing multiple relational skills simultaneously. Only a very small number of studies (n = 2) implemented an intervention targeting a single TA skill [23, 24]. Although single‐focus studies allow clearer attribution of outcomes, they remain uncommon. This is likely because relational skills are deeply interconnected and teaching them in combination reflects their practical application in real‐world situations. These findings are broadly consistent with a systematic review of non‐technical skills education for undergraduate healthcare students [25], which also identified experiential and interactive strategies, including simulation, role‐play, feedback and reflective learning. However, TA education has a more specific focus on the relational and collaborative connection between clinician and patient, including the therapeutic bond and agreement on goals and tasks. While this integrated approach accurately reflects the complexity of the TA as it unfolds in clinical practice, it leaves open the question of which specific components—or their combination—are responsible for enhancing TA competencies. More broadly, this raises a central pedagogical question: Should TA skills be taught separately to strengthen individual components or through integrative approaches that mirror the complexity of clinical encounters?

Third, many outcomes are used to measure TA competencies. Building on this, the effectiveness of TA training ultimately depends on the outcomes selected for evaluation. Very few studies in this review explicitly assessed the TA itself as a primary endpoint. Instead, most interventions measured discrete relational skills—such as empathy, communication or emotional intelligence—assuming that gains in these areas would automatically strengthen the TA. Yet, this assumption remains untested: improvements on subskills do not necessarily translate into a stronger TA overall. Moreover, as clinical outcomes are not included, it becomes unclear whether educational interventions meaningfully influence patient care. Without directly linking training to both TA measures and patient outcomes, the true impact of these educational strategies cannot be determined.

Fourth, beyond outcome selection, methodological variability in intervention and study design alike further complicates the assessment of effectiveness. There is no ‘classic’ intervention in TA, as illustrated in Table 4. Differences in training duration, intervention type and educational context hinder meaningful comparison of effectiveness across studies. While many original and innovative programmes were identified, few were replicated across contexts or populations, limiting insights into which interventions—or combinations of interventions—are most effective. More replication in TA‐training programmes could be useful for further TA teaching.

TABLE 4.

Recommendations for translating the findings into educational practice.

Finding from the review	Implications for teachers
Some TA‐related skills are less focused on	Before choosing a type of intervention or designing a course to enhance TA‐related competencies, consider if you wish to target the competency or more specifically some of its comprising skills such as empathy, communication and goal‐setting.
There is a large heterogeneity TA educational intervention
Existing interventions target several TA‐related skills
Different tools are used to measure TA‐related skills	Decide if you want to measure a TA‐related skill or the overall TA competency. Depending on the target level of competency development [26], choose how to use assessment tools in accordance with the principle of instructional alignment. Using Miller's pyramid [27] can be a first step towards ensuring that you adhere to this first principle and choose the types of assessments best suited to your context. Where feasible, educators should use assessment tools consistently across training and evaluation and ensure that they are aligned with the targeted skill, competency level and intended learning outcome.
There is no ‘one’ TA‐training intervention	In order, start by defining the target skills and competencies. Translate the teaching aims within the Bloom taxonomy. Adapt the teaching format to skills or competency. Verify the pedagogical alignment of the aim, interventions and evaluation.
There is confusion between skills and competencies and between concepts related to TA

Fifth, the relatively high number of RCTs may reflect the hybrid position of this literature, which sits at the intersection of health professions education and biomedical research traditions, where randomised designs are often privileged. However, experimental designs did not necessarily translate into strong or comparable evidence, as many studies used no‐intervention or usual‐teaching comparators and varied substantially in intervention content, outcome measures and follow‐up durations. This limits the transferability of current findings [28]. Future research should align intervention and evaluation strategies with the intended educational outcomes, moving beyond learner satisfaction or self‐reported attitudes towards observable behaviours and, where feasible, clinical practice outcomes. The Kirkpatrick model may help structure these evaluation levels [29], while reporting frameworks such as SQUIRE‐EDU may improve transparency and comparability across studies [30].

Overall, a lack of clarity in the language used in the literature should be highlighted. Terms like ‘skills’ and ‘competences’ are frequently used without distinction in many included studies. Clearer distinctions and definitions would facilitate work aimed at identifying the best implementation of TA development in curricula.

Finally, the review revealed that several student populations remain underrepresented in the literature. While medical and nursing students were widely studied, fewer investigations involved learners from fields such as pharmacy, midwifery, radiography, social work, occupational therapy or physical therapy.

5. Limitations

While this scoping review offers valuable insights into educational interventions targeting TA skill in health professions education and associated professions, several limitations must be considered when interpreting the findings. First, the results should be interpreted with the understanding that only two databases were ultimately queried, despite the interdisciplinary scope of this review. Given that the objective was to explore educational interventions relevant to multiple health professions, including medicine, nursing, psychology, physiotherapy and others, the inclusion of psychology‐focused databases would have been highly valuable. This is especially important given that the concept of the TA originates in psychology, and much of the foundational and empirical work on this topic has been published in psychology and mental health journals. Second, a total of 24 potentially relevant studies were excluded because full‐text access could not be obtained. This reduced accessibility may have led to the omission of valuable data, particularly from lesser known or non‐English journals. Taken together, these limitations call for a nuanced interpretation of the results. Lastly, because this was outside of the scope of this review, no formal quality evaluation of the included studies was conducted.

6. Perspectives

The results of this review offer several perspectives on TA education. Future studies should, after clarifying the concepts, terms used and, above all, how to measure them, broaden the range of TA skills studied by adopting more consistent and transparent methodological standards. Other studies could also investigate underrepresented student populations, such as physiotherapy and allied health students, to obtain a more comprehensive overview. Comparative studies across pedagogical forms, as well as systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, will be essential to establish evidence‐based practices in TA education. This will most likely require a common framework for TA competencies, related skills and their measurement. Once such a consensus is reached, it will allow clinical teachers to specify the targeted TA dimension, competency or skill they aim to train; the pedagogical strategy used to teach it; and the level at which learning or practice change will be evaluated, for example, using the Kirkpatrick model. For teachers, ensuring the alignment between targeted skill and competencies, intervention design and delivery and evaluation is critical [31]. As the comparative evidence did not consistently favour one educational format, the choice of strategy should be guided by the targeted skill or competency, the intended learning outcome, the learner population and the planned assessment. Practically, this means starting by ensuring the teaching aim is clear and well situated within a taxonomy such as the Bloom taxonomy [32]. Then, better understanding the skills and subcomponents of competencies and situating them within the structure of competency acquisition will help decide what type of intervention is most appropriate [26].

Based on this review's findings and discussion, Table 4 suggests practical perspectives for clinical teachers seeking to design, implement and evaluate interventions to enhance TA‐related skills and develop TA competencies.

7. Conclusion

This scoping review provides a comprehensive overview of the educational interventions designed to develop TA competencies among health professions students. Training students in TA is not optional; it is a necessity. Embedding TA education in health curricula is crucial for preparing practitioners who can establish meaningful, effective and lasting relationships with their patients.

Training students in TA is not optional; it is a necessity.

Author Contributions

Noah Simon: conceptualization, investigation, writing – original draft, methodology, writing – review and editing, formal analysis, data curation. Julien Provost: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing, validation, formal analysis, supervision. Maxime Foujanet‐Brassart: data curation, writing – review and editing. Jimmy Antunes: conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing – review and editing, formal analysis. Parker Lay: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing. Michael H. Bernstein: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing. Leo Druart: supervision, data curation, project administration, formal analysis, methodology, validation, visualization, writing – review and editing, writing – original draft, investigation, conceptualization.

Funding

The authors have nothing to report.

Ethics Statement

The authors have nothing to report.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Patient or Public Contribution

No patient or public contribution.

Reporting Method

This study adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA‐ScR) guidelines.

Preregistration

https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/87P96.

Supporting information

Data S1: Dataset.

Data S2: Table of the search terms related to the three concepts, adapted for use in PubMed and WOS. An ‘And’ operator was used to find articles with all three of these concepts.

Data S3: Table of the full search strategy for PubMed and Web of Science.

Data S4: References of included studies.

Data Availability Statement

The data are freely available as Supporting Information.