Attitudes of health sciences students towards interprofessional teamwork and education

Abstract

Relatively little is known about the specific attributes of health professional students which may influence their attitudes towards both interprofessional teamwork and interprofessional education. A survey was distributed to all pre‐licensure health professional students from medicine, nursing, pharmacy and social work programmes at our institution. Respondents were asked to rate their attitudes towards interprofessional healthcare teams and interprofessional education using validated and reliable scales reported in the literature. Information on the respondents’ gender, profession, year of study and prior experience with interprofessional education was also collected. There was no significant difference between attitudes of medicine and nursing students towards interprofessional teamwork; however, both these student groups report significantly less positive attitudes towards interprofessional teams than pharmacy and social work students. Medicine students reported significantly less positive attitudes towards interprofessional education than nursing, pharmacy and social work students. Female students and senior undergraduate students reported significantly more positive attitudes towards interprofessional teamwork and interprofessional education, while students reporting prior experience with interprofessional education reported significantly more positive attitudes towards interprofessional teamwork. Profession, gender and year of study appear to be attributes which were related to more positive attitudes towards both interprofessional teamwork and education.

Validation of an Instrument to Measure Pharmacy and Medical Students’ Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration

“…28 Our finding that medical students scored lower on their attitudes toward collaborative relationship than pharmacy students has implications for interdisciplinary education and interprofessional collaboration. More research is needed to confirm our results in students and practitioners at multiple institutions.…”

Critical Thinking and Reflection Exercises in a Biochemistry Course to Improve Prospective Health Professions Students’ Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration

“…[28][29][30][31][32][33] In the case of students, pharmacy and social work students expressed more positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration than did medical students. 34 In one study, however, Turkish medical students demonstrated a more positive attitude toward collaboration than did nursing students. 35 Despite the possible force of the principle of least interest, we show that prospective health professions students, the vast majority of whom aspire to become medical or dental physicians, could be influenced to become significantly more eager to collaborate with pharmacists simply through working regularly with pharmacy students to perform critical-thinking and reflection exercises in biochemistry learning teams.…”

The positive impact of interprofessional education: a controlled trial to evaluate a programme for health professional students

“…Higher scores represent more positive attitudes toward interprofessional learning. The modified RIPLS has been found to have very good internal consistency when completed by health professional students [28,29]. Two underlying constructs have been identified: 'expertise'; and 'competency' [28].…”