A Rapid Review of the Factors That Influence Service User Involvement in Interprofessional Education, Practice, and Research

Co-designing interprofessional education in primary healthcare: an illustration from the Make My Day stroke prevention project

The aim of this paper is to describe a research process of actively engaging stakeholders using co-design in the development of interprofessional education and a health intervention program targeting stroke prevention. Stakeholders included potential patients, healthcare professionals, and healthcare experts/researchers. Collaborating through co-design can be utilized in developing primary healthcare interventions including educational strategies for interprofessional learning. In this paper, an intervention in primary healthcare (Make My Day) will be used to illustrate how co-design was applied, partly as a method for developing educational resources together with stakeholders, and partly by engaging interprofessional healthcare teams in adapting intervention materials to address the needs of groups more specifically at risk of stroke in local contexts. There is a need to actively involve stakeholders, build on user experiences, and integrate interprofessional knowledge in the design and evaluation of health interventions. However, there is a lack of detailed accounts about how this can be accomplished. This study illustrates collaborative research process components and thus contributes with knowledge about how co-design methods can be applied in health intervention design as well as in interprofessional education within primary healthcare settings.

Learning to teach with patients and caregivers: a focused ethnography

BACKGROUND

Little is known about what happens when patients and caregivers are involved in an academic setting as co-teachers and how healthcare professionals approach a new model of partnership-based teaching. This study aimed to explore the learning and behavioural patterns of a group of healthcare professionals who were learning to teach with patients and caregivers as co-teachers in a post-graduate course.

METHODS

A focused ethnographic study involving 11 health professionals was conducted. Data were collected through participatory observation during the course, individual semi-structured interviews, and a follow-up focus group. Taxonomic analysis was performed.

RESULTS

Three categories were identified: 'group', 'role of narration' and 'applying co-teaching with patients and caregivers '. Specifically, heterogeneity, absence of hierarchies, and balanced relationships characterised the group dynamic and promoted partnership. Narration played a key role both in learning and in healthcare professionals' relationship with patients and caregivers and promoted emotional skills and self-awareness. Project planning and lessons simulations were essential aspects of the implementation process.

CONCLUSIONS

This focused ethnography helped further understanding of the context of a specific project involving patients and caregivers as co-teachers in healthcare professional education. The development of emotional skills and self-awareness are the main learning patterns of co-teaching, and interprofessionalism and balanced relationships are the basis of the behavioural patterns. These patterns facilitated the involvement of patients and caregivers in health education.

Evaluation of an interprofessional education intervention in partnership with patient educators

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Patient involvement in interprofessional education is a novel approach to building collaborative and empathic skills in students. However, this area of teaching is lacking in rigorous studies. The project aimed to evaluate whether an interprofessional education intervention in partnership with patient educators (IPE-PE) would increase readiness for interprofessional learning and empathy in health sciences students.

METHODS

This is the report of a didactic innovation project. Participants included 310 undergraduate health sciences students who took part in an IPE-PE intervention. Data were collected before and after the training, using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Student version (JSE-HPS). Only at the end of the intervention, a data collection form was administered to explore the value of the patient educator in the training and to investigate the socio-demographic variables.

RESULTS

The mean age of participants was 21±3.2 SD years and 76% were female. A paired t-test showed significant changes from before to after the IPE-PE in the mean total RIPLS score (42.7±5.8 SD vs 44.62±5.9 SD, P<0.001) and the mean total JSE-HPS score (112.7±12.5 SD vs 116.03±12.8 SD, P<0.001).            Conclusions: Our students reported that IPE-PE had helped them to become more effective healthcare team members, to think positively about other professionals, and to gain empathic understanding of the perspective of the person being cared for. The results of the project confirm that the intervention promoted the development of empathy, fostering a better understanding of the patient-centred perspective.