Board 391 - Research Abstract Development and Construct Validation of the Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS) for Assessing the Impact of Interprofessional Simulations (Submission #1233)

Abstract

Introduction/Background Development of interprofessional competencies is essential in the training of practice-ready health professionals. Many interprofessional educational (IPE) programs use simulations to teach collaborative team skills. These IPE simulations should facilitate students meeting the recently published IPEC Core Competencies.1 However, determining whether this occurs is difficult since no validated tools currently exist to assess all four IPEC Core Competency domains. The goals of this study were to develop, validate and test a novel scale to assess interprofessional attitudes of students in the health professions. This scale was designed to incorporate the core competency domains defined in the IPEC Report and to be used in assessing the impact of IPE simulations on health professional student attitudes towards interprofessionalism. Methods An online survey containing 42 questions based in part on the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS)2-4 and new questions based on the IPEC Core Competencies was developed and administered in 2012 to a diverse group of 1549 health professional students from the University of Utah Health Sciences (UUHS). The UUHS is an academic health center composed of four schools and colleges (Health, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy), including nursing, medical, pharmacy, medical laboratory science, nutrition, occupational therapy, public health and physician assistant students. Analyses were performed to validate the assessment tool, eliminate redundant questions and cluster questions into subscales. Results The responses from the 42 item online survey tool were evaluated to assess construct validity and internal consistency reliability. A survey response rate of 45% (n=701) was obtained. After removing incomplete survey responses, a dataset consisting of 678 responses was randomly split into two datasets which were independently analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA, n=342) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA, n=336). The result of the EFA was a 27 item scale that we named the Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS). The EFA identified five subscales with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.62 to 0.92 (Table 1). The CFA indicated the content of the five subscales was consistent with the EFA model. The collection of validated survey questions is being incorporated into surveys administered to students before and after IPE simulations to evaluate the impact of the simulations on interprofessional attitudes. These IPE simulations are designed to train students to work collaboratively in interprofessional teams and include students from all four schools and colleges at the UUHS at various levels of training. The Results of these on-going assessments using the IPAS will be described in more detail during the presentation. Conclusion We have created and validated an assessment tool, the IPAS, which contains items that reflect current interprofessional competencies. The IPAS is being used to assess the impact of IPE simulations on student’s attitudes towards working collaboratively in interprofessional teams.