The impact of an interprofessional education workshop for medical, nursing, and pharmacy students: A before and after intervention study

Abstract

   Objectives: Assess the effect of the interprofessional education (IPE) workshop on students’ attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration and to gather students’ feedback regarding the IPE workshop in Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine.

   Methods: A pre-post quasi-experimental design was conducted in June 2024 with third- year medical, pharmacy, and nursing students. The IPE workshop was designed with a 1-hour pre-workshop section, one 2-hour online theory session, and a 3.5- hour practice-based session with teamwork and communication skill practice, and a 3.5-hour practice-based session with standardized patients, facilitated by faculty from pharmacy, medicine, and nursing. The Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS) was used to assess students before and after the IPE on a 5-point Likert scale. Student satisfaction was measured using a 15-item questionnaire, also rated on a 5-point Likert scale.

   Results: A total of 44 students (16 medical, 13 pharmacy, and 15 nursing students) completed. students’ attitudes were significantly higher after completing the IPE workshop than before the program in all four sub-scale (except for the aspect “Interprofessional Biases”): “Teamwork, Roles and Responsibilities” (z = -4.113,   p < .001); “Patient-centered” (z = -3.794, p < .001); “Diversity & Ethics” (z = -3.574, p < .001), “Community Centeredness” (z = -3.467, p < .001). The “Interprofessional Bias” domain remained unchanged at 3.00. Overall, 81.8% to 100% of students expressed satisfaction with the IPE activities.

   Conclusion: The IPE workshop, designed and implemented to focus on the simulation of patient-centered care, positively impacted students’ interprofessional attitudes. These results offer insights to expand the implementation of the IPE module in health science universities.

DOI: 10.59715/pntjmp.4.2.16