Abstract
BackgroundTraining health professional students in teamwork is recognized as an important step to create interprofessional collaboration in the clinical workplace. Interprofessional problem-based learning (PBL) is one learning approach that has been proposed to provide students with the opportunity to develop the necessary skills to work collaboratively with various health professionals. This study aimed to explore the extent to which students in interprofessional tutorial groups demonstrate constructive collaboration during group discussions.MethodsStudents (N = 52) from the Medical, Midwifery and Nursing programmes took part in the study. Video-recordings were made of interprofessional PBL discussions (N = 40) in five groups, eight videos per group. Over a period of 4 weeks, participants discussed four scenarios concerned with the reproductive system. The resulting 67 h of video data were analysed qualitatively. To ensure inter-rater reliability, two tutors assessed the students’ constructive, collaborative activities using the Maastricht Peer-Activity Rating Scale (MPARS). Finally, to gain an understanding of students’ perceptions of their performance and participation in the interprofessional PBL tutorial, we organized three uni-professional focus groups (FGs) at the end of pilot project.ResultsThe translated MPARS was reliable (Kappa coefficient 0.01–0.20 and p < 0.05). Students were actively involved in the discussion and contributed to a better understanding regardless of their professional background. Group members from different professions complemented one another in solving learning issues. They were open, feeling free to question and argue from the viewpoint of their own profession, and also understood their strengths and limitations. The statistical test of the scores for constructive and collaborative activities indicated a significant difference between students and the various healthcare professionals, p = 0.000, with medical students scoring highest on both activities. Focus groups further clarified some of the observed dynamics.ConclusionImplementing interprofessional PBL could motivate students to engage collaboratively in co-constructing knowledge to solve the patients’ problem. Medical students scored highest on constructive and collaborative activities.
Highlights
Interprofessional collaboration in health care is considered to be a potential solution to reduce clinical error, improve patient safety and enhance the quality of patient care
In order to achieve the aim of this study, we developed the following research questions: 1. To what extent do students in interprofessional problem-based learning (PBL) groups demonstrate constructive and collaborative activities in the tutorial group discussions?
Maastricht Peer-Activity Rating Scale (MPARS) inter-rater reliability and validity tests The Kappa statistical test results indicated that all items had slight agreement with a Kappa coefficient of 0.01– 0.20 and p < 0.05 (Table 4)
Summary
Interprofessional collaboration in health care is considered to be a potential solution to reduce clinical error, improve patient safety and enhance the quality of patient care. Previous studies report many factors that may prevent effective collaboration among professionals. Training health professional students to work together is recognized as an important step in creating interprofessional collaboration in the clinical workplace. IPE has been implemented in various educational formats, such as interprofessional ward-based training [15, 16], case-based discussion [17, 18], clinical simulation [19, 20], e-learning [21], and ambulatory primary care [22]. Training health professional students in teamwork is recognized as an important step to create interprofessional collaboration in the clinical workplace. This study aimed to explore the extent to which students in interprofessional tutorial groups demonstrate constructive collaboration during group discussions
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