No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Background: Health Canada and Cochrane reviews indicate a need for rigorous outcome testing following interprofessional learning, particularly in practice settings. This led to research questioning whether knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, values, and skills regarding collaborative patient care improve after interprofessional learning in classroom and practice settings based on the degree of exposure to interprofessional learning compared to a control group.Methods and Findings: Pre-licensure students from seven health-profession programs were assigned to three groups: Control (no intervention), Education (classroom-based interprofessional learning), and Full-Participant (classroom-based and practice-based interprofessional learning). They were later surveyed to assess outcomes. Immersion at an interprofessional practice setting had a greater impact on scores than classroom-based interprofessional education. Both interventions significantly improved attitudes, perceptions, knowledge, and skills related to interprofessional collaboration. Only immersion improved the perceived importance of sharing leadership. Changes after the education intervention persisted at five-month follow-up.Conclusions: Interprofessional learning in classroom and practice settings positively impacted participants' knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and values, and skills regarding interprofessional teamwork. Use of a longitudinal study with a control group provided evidence that pre-licensure interprofessional learning would increase awareness of the need to collaborate. Findings encourage longerterm study of how interprofessional learning in various settings could improve how future practitioners approach patient care.

The total population of the service area is approximately 8,000 people, the significant majority of whom self-report as Inuit, and are widely dispersed over eight communities. Despite the challenges in terms of culture, geography and recruitment of introducing a rehabilitation program in Canada's north, the residents of the Kivalliq Region now have a viable model of receiving rehabilitative intervention in their home communities.