Date Presented 3/31/2017
This presentation describes a model introductory interprofessional education program for graduate students in nursing, pharmacy, and physical and occupational therapy. Results regarding students’ attitudes toward interprofessional education, and specifically their understanding of roles, are reviewed.
Primary Author and Speaker: Debra Gibbs
Contributing Authors: Suzanne Greenwalt, Lindsay Hahn, Lucyellen Dahlgren
PURPOSE: The World Health Organization (WHO; 2010) has called for a collaborative practice–ready workforce in which students learn to work interprofessionally, preparing them to be members of the collaborative practice team. In order to prepare these types of practitioners, interprofessional education (IPE) needs to be introduced into the curriculum. According to the WHO, “Interprofessional education occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.” IPE demonstrates a shift from single-discipline education to a team approach to the delivery of patient care. Barriers to this shift include students’ attitudes and understanding of professional roles. According to Zwarenstein and Reeves (2006), role confusion contributes to the difficulty of moving toward a team approach. Interprofessional learning opportunities in curricula can positively impact students’ willingness to learn together and improve long-term positive feelings toward IPE (Ruebling et al., 2014).
PURPOSE: A short orientation program for students in nursing, pharmacy, occupational, and physical therapy was offered introducing the concepts of interprofessional practice (IPP) and IPE. The research questions was, Does a short IPE orientation program have an impact on (1) students’ attitudes toward IPE, and specifically, (2) students’ understanding of their professional roles?
DESIGN: A quasi-experimental, pre–post survey design was used with graduate students in pharmacy, nursing, and physical and occupational therapy. A nonrandomized method for participants was used since the orientation was a mandatory experience for all 1st-yr graduate students in the College of Health Sciences and College of Pharmacy. Students completed the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) before and after the IPE program.
METHOD: The RIPLS was chosen because it was developed to measure readiness for interprofessional shared learning as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of shared learning activities and changes in attitudes toward these activities. The RIPLS comprises 19 statements that are assessed on a five-point Likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. These statements create four separate domains: teamwork and collaboration, positive professional identity, negative professional identity, and roles and responsibilities. Median and interquartile range were used to summarize the RIPLS scores before and after the orientation program as well as the change in those values. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to test the statistical significance of the change in the scores. Differences in the amount of change from before to after the orientation program among the disciplines, controlling for each student’s preintervention score, were calculated using analysis of covariance. Due to extremely skewed distributions, the data were rank transformed for that analysis. A maximum alpha of .05 (p < .05) was used for determining statistical significance.
RESULTS: There was a statistically significant change in students’ attitudes toward interprofessional education and understanding of roles (p < .05).
CONCLUSION: Health care educators are being challenged to identify interprofessional opportunities to prepare practitioners who are competent in IPP. A short IPE orientation program can be easily introduced and is shown to be effective in impacting student attitudes. IPE facilitates the understanding of each discipline’s roles and use in future health care practice.
References
Ruebling, I., Pole, D., Breitbach, A. P., Frager, A., Kettenbach, G., Westhus, N., . . . Carlson, J. (2014). A comparison of student attitudes and perceptions before and after an introductory interprofessional education experience. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 28, 23–27. http://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2013.829421
World Health Organization. (2010). Framework for action on interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Geneva: Author. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/hrh/resources/framework_action/en/
Zwarenstein, M., & Reeves, S. (2006). Knowledge translation and interprofessional collaboration: Where the rubber of evidence-based care hits the road of teamwork. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 26, 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1002/chp.50
