A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Perceptions of Interprofessional Education in Medical Students

Assessment of nursing undergraduate's perceptions of Interprofessional learning: A cross-sectional study

Background

Inter-Professional Learning (IPE) is based on mutual respect, and it improves collaboration and teamwork, and satisfaction among students and professionals.

Objective

This study aimed to assess the perceptions of IPE among Nursing students in Saudi Arabia.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional survey-based study conducted among students from three different universities in Saudi Arabia, among nursing students over 6 months from May 2021 to October 2021. Descriptive analysis was used to assess the perceptions of IPE and inferential testing was used to assess the association of perception scores among variables using a statistical package for social science version 26 (SPSS).

Results

A total of 517 participants responded to the questionnaires. A higher proportion (n = 281, 54.4%) of the participants were females and were between 21 and 24 (n = 350; 67.7%) years old. The mean age of the participants was 21.35 (SD = 1.46). The majority of them were from King Saud University (n = 273, 52.8%), followed by King Khalid University (n = 127, 24.6%). Of the participants (80.4 %) agreed learning with other students will help them to become more effective members of a healthcare team. The mean overall score for RIPLS was 70.85 (SD = 6.611). The mean score for teamwork and collaboration was 37.19 (SD = 4.79), professional identity, 23.23 (SD = 2.89), roles and responsibilities 10.42 (SD = 2.20). The mean score is significantly associated with the university type (p = 0.0001), and previous knowledge of IPE (p = 0.0001).

Conclusion

The majority of the students had positive perceptions of understanding IPE and a good level of preparation for IPE. This means that if IPE is conducted among Saudi students, students will benefit from it, and it has the potential to improve their capacity to deliver holistic nursing care to their patients.

Perceptions and attitudes of different healthcare professionals and students toward interprofessional education in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional survey

Interprofessional education (IPE) is now regarded as an extremely important approach in the academic field for preparing healthcare students to provide patient care in a collaborative team environment. In this study, we examine the perceptions and attitudes toward IPE in a Saudi specialized health sciences university. This study is a cross-sectional survey at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences and King Abdulaziz Medical City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The instruments used in this study were pre-designed self-administered questionnaires identified from the literature (The Nebraska Interprofessional Education Attitudes Scale (NIPEAS) and The Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education-Revised (SPICE-R). A total of 668 individuals participated in the study. The majority of the participants were between the ages of 18 and 25 (79.2%) and were students (77.1%) from medicine, nursing and applied medical science. The participants' responses were primarily positive for all items of the NIPEAS and most of the items of the SPICE-R. The results of this study indicate that students and healthcare professionals have positive perceptions and readiness toward IPE, and implementation of shared learning is highly encouraged. The integration of IPE in the curriculum is recommended to improve teamwork and patient care outcomes.

Evaluating Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration and Education Among Health Professional Learners

BACKGROUND

An interprofessional education (IPE) workshop was established to enhance knowledge, skills, and attitudes for health professional learners to engage in interprofessional collaboration (IPC) through group-based activities. This study evaluates the IPC attitudes of learners following the IPE workshop.

METHOD

Learner attitudes were measured pre- and post-workshop with the validated ICCAS survey for years 2017 and 2018. Areas such as communication and collaboration were assessed using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

RESULTS

161/420 (38%) and 399/446 (89%) of surveys were completed in 2017 and 2018. Median scores were significantly higher post-workshop for both years (p < 0.001). Pre-test differences were observed between Medicine and Pharmacy in both years and post-test differences between Optometry and Nursing in 2018.

CONCLUSION

Positive outcomes are being observed among learners through IPC educational events. Further research is required to determine whether such activities promote IPC in future practice.

Effect of interprofessional clinical education programme length on students' attitudes towards teamwork

This article reports on a study involving a range of health professions students who participated in similar one-semester (short) or two-semester (long) interprofessional clinical education programmes that focused on clinical assessment of senior citizens living independently in the community. Students' attitudes towards teamwork skills and perceptions of their own teamwork skills both before and after the programmes were assessed using two validated scales. Osteopathic medical student participants reported no significant changes in attitudes towards interprofessional healthcare teamwork skills or their perceptions of their own interprofessional teamwork skills after either the one- or two-semester programmes. For athletic training, speech-language pathology, exercise sciences, public health, and nursing students, though, attitudes towards teamwork skills significantly improved (p < .05) after the one-semester programme; and perceptions of their own team skills significantly improved (p < .05) after both the one- and two-semester programmes. Overall, this study provides some support for interprofessional teamwork attitude change, but with a significant difference between medical as compared to nursing, allied health, and public health students.

The perceptions and readiness toward interprofessional education among female undergraduate health-care students at King Saud University

[Purpose] Interprofessional education (IPE) is an important academic approach for preparing health-care professionals to provide patient care in a collaborative team environment. This study aimed to measure the perceptions and readiness toward IPE among female undergraduate health-care students at King Saud University (KSU). [Subjects and Methods] A cross-sectional study carried out using a survey in the form of an electronic questionnaire: The Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). The questionnaire was distributed to the students via e-mail and social media networks. [Results] The RIPLS was completed by 296 female health-care students at KSU who valued the importance of IPE. The differences between health-care disciplines in the perceptions and readiness toward IPE were statistically significant, but there were no differences between students of different years of study in their perception and readiness toward IPE. [Conclusion] Administering a course of interprofessional teamwork in the health-care curriculum is a major challenge for the clinical education community. IPE offers an opportunity to address the multi-disciplinary concept in hospitals. Our findings indicate that undergraduate health-care students have high perception and readiness toward IPE.