Abstract
BackgroundCollaborative interprofessional practice is an important means of providing effective care to people with complex health problems. Interprofessional education (IPE) is assumed to enhance interprofessional practice despite challenges to demonstrate its efficacy. This study evaluated whether an IPE programme changed students’ attitudes to interprofessional teams and interprofessional learning, students’ self-reported effectiveness as a team member, and students’ perceived ability to manage long-term conditions.MethodsA prospective controlled trial evaluated an eleven-hour IPE programme focused on long-term conditions’ management. Pre-registration students from the disciplines of dietetics (n = 9), medicine (n = 36), physiotherapy (n = 12), and radiation therapy (n = 26) were allocated to either an intervention group (n = 41) who received the IPE program or a control group (n = 42) who continued with their usual discipline specific curriculum. Outcome measures were the Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale (ATHCTS), Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS), the Team Skills Scale (TSS), and the Long-Term Condition Management Scale (LTCMS). Analysis of covariance compared mean post-intervention scale scores adjusted for baseline scores.ResultsMean post-intervention attitude scores (all on a five-point scale) were significantly higher in the intervention group than the control group for all scales. The mean difference for the ATHCTS was 0.17 (95 %CI 0.05 to 0.30; p = 0.006), for the RIPLS was 0.30 (95 %CI 0.16 to 0.43; p < 0.001), for the TSS was 0.71 (95 %CI 0.49 to 0.92; p < 0.001), and for the LTCMS was 0.75 (95 %CI 0.56 to 0.94; p < 0.001). The mean effect of the intervention was similar for students from the two larger disciplinary sub-groups of medicine and radiation therapy.ConclusionsAn eleven-hour IPE programme resulted in improved attitudes towards interprofessional teams and interprofessional learning, as well as self-reported ability to function within an interprofessional team, and self-reported confidence, knowledge, and ability to manage people with long-term conditions. These findings indicate that a brief intervention such as this can have immediate positive effects and contribute to the development of health professionals who are ready to collaborate with others to improve patient outcomes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-015-0385-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Collaborative interprofessional practice is an important means of providing effective care to people with complex health problems
All allocated students decided to participate in the evaluation except for one medical student, who opted out of data collection at the start of the trial
The mean effect of the intervention was similar for students from the two larger disciplinary sub-groups of medicine and radiation therapy (Table 2)
Summary
Collaborative interprofessional practice is an important means of providing effective care to people with complex health problems. This study evaluated whether an IPE programme changed students’ attitudes to interprofessional teams and interprofessional learning, students’ self-reported effectiveness as a team member, and students’ perceived ability to manage long-term conditions. Interprofessional practice is a collaborative model of healthcare which optimises the use of multiple professional skills sets to provide well-coordinated, high-quality, patient-centred care [1, 2]. Communication errors are recognised as a frequent cause of adverse healthcare events and suboptimal patient care [3]. This collaborative inter-disciplinary way of working is considered a crucial element of safe and effective care [4, 5]. Collaborative team-based care has been found to improve outcomes for people with depression [8], diabetes [9], heart failure [10], hypertension [11], terminal cancer [12], and following acute geriatric hospital admissions [13]
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