Attitude of health professional undergraduate students towards interprofessional learning

Abstract

Objective To investigate the attitude of health professional undergraduate students towards interprofessional learning and provide effective evidence for the setting of interprofessional education. Methods 453 health professional undergraduate students majoring in medicine, nursing, preventive medicine and rehabilitation treatment were measured by the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). Collected data was performed by mean ± standard deviation (SD), frequency, and percentage and analyzed by independent t test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results The overall RIPLS score of students from the four major was (71.70±11.61), the subscales score of teamwork and collaboration, professional identity, and roles and responsibilities of RIPLS were (35.25±6.68), (26.72±5.12), (9.74±2.03), respectively. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in professional identity, roles and responsibilities scores by professions, roles and responsibilities scores by grades and students who had clinical practice had lower scores of roles and responsibilities than these without clinical practice (all P<0.05). Conclusions Health professional undergraduate students’ attitudes towards interprofessional learning were not positive. Professions, grades and the experience of clinical practice were factors associated with attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration. Therefore, educators should implement interprofessional education for health professional undergraduate students in the early education, which can promote teamwork and improve quality of care. Key words: Undergraduate students; Interprofessional education; Study attitude; Investigation