An interprofessional training to improve advance care planning skills among medicine, nursing, and social work students

Advance Care Planning and Communication Skills Improve after an Interprofessional Team Simulation with Standardized Patients

Background:

Improving rates of advance care planning (ACP) and advance directive completion is a recognized goal of health care in the United States. No prior study has examined the efficacy of standardized patient (SP)-based student interprofessional ACP trainings.

Objectives:

The present study aims to evaluate an interprofessional approach to ACP education using SP encounters.

Design:

We designed a pre–post evaluation of an innovative interprofessional ACP training curriculum using multimodal adult learning techniques to test the effects of completing ACP discussions with SPs. Three surveys (pre-training T1, post-training T2, and post-clinical encounter T3) evaluated student knowledge, Communication Self-Efficacy (CSES), ACP self-efficacy, and interprofessional teamwork (using SPICE-R2).

Setting/Subjects:

Students from the schools of medicine, nursing, and social work attended three training modules and two SP encounters focused on ACP.

Measurements/Results:

During academic year 2018–2019, 36 students participated in the training at University of Maryland. Results demonstrated statistically significant improvements in ACP self-efficacy, M_T1 = 2.9 (standard deviation [SD]_T1 = 0.61) compared with M_T3 = 3.9 (SD_T3 = 0.51), p < 0.001, and CSES, M_T1 = 4.6 (SD_T1 = 1.35) versus M_T3 = 7.3 (SD_T3 = 0.51), p < 0.001, from T1 to T3. There was a medium-to-large improvement in knowledge from an average score of 4.3 (SD = 1.0) at T1 to an average score of 5.5 (SD = 1.4) at T2, p = 0.005, d = 0.67.

Conclusions:

Our interprofessional training module and SP encounter was successful in improving medical, social work, and nursing students' self-reported communication skills and knowledge regarding ACP.

Promoting Mobility in the Intensive Care Unit: An Educational Interprofessional Initiative

BACKGROUND

Collaborative interprofessional practice is essential in the critical care arena to promote quality, safety, and positive outcomes for patients. An interprofessional educational activity focusing on early mobilization of intubated intensive care patients was undertaken with senior level nursing students and physical therapy students. Evidence demonstrates that these patients have improved functional outcomes, fewer days requiring mechanical ventilation, fewer days of delirium, and decreased length of stay both within the intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital with early mobilization efforts.

METHOD

Students applied knowledge from the literature, clinical guidelines, and evidence-based practices in developing a plan of care to facilitate early mobility of the intensive care intubated patient. A structured debriefing session followed.

RESULTS

Students developed a keen appreciation of collaborative, interprofessional, evidence-based care vital to patients who are intubated in the ICU.

CONCLUSION

Student engagement in simulated inter-professional teams potentially influences their perceptions and attitudes about its benefits which are necessary for future professional practice. [J Nurs Educ. 2022;61(X):XXX-XXX.].