Although there are many beneits of interprofessional health care, no previous research has sought to deine the status of interprofessional education (IPE) in U.S. dental hygiene programs. The aims of this study were to assess how these programs engage in IPE, the challenges they encounter, and the value they place on IPE. Additionally, the study explored how program characteristics are related to IPE. Data were collected with a web-based survey sent to all 322 U.S. dental hygiene program directors (response rate: 33% of the 305 successfully contacted). The majority of the responding programs were located at institutions with nursing (90%) and other allied health programs (85%). They were likely to collaborate with nursing (50%), other allied health (44%), and dental assisting programs (41%), but were less likely to collaborate with dental schools (28%). IPE was most likely to occur in volunteer activities (68%), basic science courses (65%), and communication training/behavioral science courses (63%/59%). The most frequently reported challenges for IPE were schedule coordination (92%) and curriculum overload (76%). The majority of the respondents agreed that IPE was a priority for the dental hygiene profession in the U.S. (59%) and for the program directors personally (56%). Programs granting bachelor degrees were more likely to have IPE as a priority than programs that did not grant such degrees (scale of 1-5 with 5=most important: 3.81 vs. 2.88; p<0.01). The longer the students spent in the programs, the more those programs engaged in IPE (r=0.21; p<0.05).
A 2014 survey found that dental hygiene program directors perceived interprofessional education (IPE) as a priority for themselves and the dental hygiene profession in the U.S. The aim of this study was to explore whether IPE collaborations in dental hygiene programs and program directors’ attitudes changed from 2014 to 2017 since the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) Standard 2–15 on IPE was introduced in August 2016. In May 2017, directors of all 325 U.S. dental hygiene programs were invited to participate in a web‐based survey. A total of 117 directors responded, for a 38% response rate, and their responses were then compared with the responses in 2014 (that survey had a 33% response rate). The results showed that, while the percentage of responding dental hygiene programs with a nursing program on campus had decreased (90% to 80%; p<0.022), the likelihood of having other health care‐related programs on campus did not change. In 2017 as compared to 2014, the programs were still most likely to collaborate with nursing (50% vs. 46%) and other allied health professions (44% vs. 56%) and in intraprofessional education with dental assisting programs (41% vs. 41%). IPE was still most likely to occur in volunteer activities (68% vs. 73%), basic science courses (65% vs. 60%), and communications training (63% vs. 63%). In 2017, program directors rated IPE as less challenging for programs to manage than in 2014 (on five‐point scale with 1=not at all challenging: 3.31 vs. 3.62; p=0.022). However, the responding directors did not view IPE as being as important to the profession in 2017 as the respondents reported in 2014 (3.29 vs. 3.88; p<0.001). The majority in 2017 agreed/strongly agreed that Standard 2–15 will improve the profile of dental hygiene as part of the health care team (77%) and contribute to integrating dental hygiene into interprofessional care (IPC) teams (78%). Overall, this study found that the introduction of an explicit IPE dental hygiene CODA standard in 2016 had already resulted in changes after only one year. However, the responding program directors’ lower agreement with statements concerning their graduates’ IPC‐related competence deserves further attention.
The fact that dental hygienists had less positive role perceptions than dental hygiene students might lead to the conclusion that a loss of idealism occurs over the course of a professional lifespan. However, dental hygienists actually improved their role perceptions over time and students' future descriptions were more positive than their current descriptions, supporting the interpretation that realistic optimism dominates professional role perceptions in these times of change.
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