Health and social care students pursuing different studies, and their written assignments from workshop and online interprofessional education

Abstract

Interprofessional education (IPE) is of central importance to health and social care students if they are to acquire the ability and willingness to collaborate across professional boundaries. There is disagreement about when such an educational intervention should be introduced. The aim of this study is to examine how students from different studies, or student groups at different stages in their study, describe their experiences with workshop and online IPE. This qualitative study consists of two sets of data. The dataset from the first year of study consists of data from 92 health students, and the dataset from the second year of study comprises 20 health and social care students. The intervention consists of a workshop and online IPE. Students’ discussions online and their assignments were the basis for text analysis. The findings show that students describe IPE somewhat differently. Students in their first year of study seem to have acquired knowledge of the roles of the professions involved. Students in their second year give more positive and conscious descriptions of IPE, compared with first-year students.