Nursing staff's and physicians' acquisition of competences and attitudes to interprofessional education and interprofessional collaboration in pediatrics

Attitudes of health care professionals towards interprofessional teamwork in Ashanti Region, Ghana

BACKGROUND

Interprofessional collaboration ensures that high-quality health care is provided leading to improved health outcomes and provider satisfaction. Assessing the attitudes of health care professionals towards teamwork in Ghana is novel.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the attitudes of health care professionals towards interprofessional teamwork and assess specific attributes influencing these attitudes in the Ashanti region, prior to implementing an in-service interprofessional HIV training programme.

METHODS

A cross-sectional pre-training online survey using a modified Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale was conducted among health care practitioners undergoing a two-day interactive interprofessional HIV training in Kumasi and Agogo from November 2019 to January 2020. Trainees were diverse health professional cadres selected from five hospitals in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Data was summarised using the mean and standard deviation for continuous variables, and frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to categorise the 14 items of the modified attitudes scale. The Wilcoxon rank-sum (Mann-Whitney) and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to test the mean attitude difference among the demographic characteristics. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.

RESULTS

Altogether, 302 health professionals completed the survey. The ages ranged from 20-58 years, mean age 27.96 years (standard deviation 5.90 years). Up to 95% of the trainees agreed with the 14 statements on the modified attitudes scale. Three factors were identified; "quality of care", "team efficiency", and "time constraint" with Cronbach's alpha measures of 0.73, 0.50, and 0.45 respectively. The overall mean attitude score was 58.15 ± 6.28 (95% CI, 57.42-58.88). Attitude of health care professionals towards interdisciplinary teams for patient care varied significantly by age (p = 0.014), health profession cadre (p = 0.005), facility (p = 0.037), and professional experience (p = 0.034).

CONCLUSION

Strengthening in-service interprofessional training for health practitioners especially early career professionals in the Ashanti region would be valuable.

A Cross-Sectional Study on Attitude and Barriers to Interprofessional Collaboration in Hospitals Among Health Care Professionals

The need for an effective health personnel team is important due to the increasing complexity of patient care and increasing co-morbidities. Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) among healthcare professionals offers appropriate collaborative management for humans. This study aimed to assess the attitude and barriers to IPC in hospitals among healthcare professionals in Lahore, Pakistan. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sampling technique. Healthcare professionals (speech-language pathologists, audiologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, ENT specialists, pediatricians, dentists, and nursing staff) working at Children Hospital, Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Pakistan Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled (PSRD), Lahore, Pakistan were included. The paper and online survey questionnaire composed in the google form and attitudes toward healthcare teams scale (ATHCT) and barriers scale toward interprofessional collaboration were used. Statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) version 21 was used to analyze the survey data through frequency analyses and percentage distributions. Most of the respondents (response rate = 88.1%) had positive attitudes toward IPC and strongly agreed on 9 positive statements in ATHCT. Statistically, Major barriers were role and leadership ambiguity 68.6%, different goals of individual team members 68.1%, and 53.3% strongly agreed on the difference in levels of authority, power, expertise, and income. Although healthcare professionals have an optimistic attitude toward IPC, several healthcare professionals come across challenges during the practice of IPC. To overcome the analyzed barriers, the higher healthcare authorities must encourage interprofessional collaborative strategies and models.

Overcoming language barriers, enhancing collaboration with interpreters - an interprofessional learning intervention (Interpret2Improve)

BACKGROUND

Language barriers (LB) are common in patient care. They can negatively impact the quality of care, and increase costs. LB can be overcome by using interpreters. However, collaboration with interpreters is a professional activity which can and needs to be learnt. Interpret2Improve is an innovative educational intervention where medical and nursing students learn together how to address LB and effectively collaborate with interpreters.

METHODS

The three-hour course has two parts: After a short introduction on the relevance of LB and resulting issues of patient safety etc., students in interprofessional teams of two practice conversations with non-German-speaking simulated patients and professional interpreters. The course is evaluated in a pre-post format with the Freiburg Questionnaire for Interprofessional Learning Evaluation which has been validated in prior studies.

RESULTS

Fifty-one students (thirty of the participants were medical students, 21 participants were students in nursing care) participated from 11/2016-07/2018. Overall, the course was very well received (mean 1.73 (SD 0.85) on a five point scale: 1 = very good, 5 = insufficient). The evaluation by medical and nursing students differed significantly. Fourteen out of twenty-one items show a self-assessed increase in interprofessional knowledge or skills.

CONCLUSIONS

Students felt that their skills in addressing LB by effectively collaborating with interpreters increased during this interprofessional format. Further studies are needed to obtain further evidence beyond self-assessment and regarding the long-term outcomes.

Core educational components of interprofessional education in pediatric emergencies: An integrated review

PURPOSE

This study was conducted to explore the core educational components of interprofessional education (IPE) for pediatric emergencies to establish a basis for interprofessional simulation education.

METHODS

Using Whittemore and Knafl's integrative review method, we searched for studies in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and four South Korean databases (RISS, NDSL, DBpia, and KISS).

RESULTS

We identified 21 studies on the general characteristics of IPE in pediatric emergency situations and integrated the core components of IPE according to a PRISMA flowchart. Three core components were identified (individual-competent professionals, team-cooperative professions, and outcome-optimal achievement), with the subthemes of role and responsibility, clinical judgment, performance, leadership, communication, teamwork, patient safety, and quality improvement.

CONCLUSION

We recommend that IPE pediatric emergencies should contain the three dimensions of these core components to enhance individual and team performance and to promote optimal achievement in terms of patient outcomes. IPE programs should consider these characteristics and include a valid tool for evaluating the programs' effectiveness.