Collaborative practices and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual and/or Ally (LGBTQIA+) care in clinical nursing education

Abstract

Collaborative practices are used by inter-professional healthcare teams to solve complex health problems. Nursing programs, however, rarely offer students collaborative practice experiences in their curricula due to content saturation. In this study, we demonstrate how collaborative practices can be successfully embedded into existing undergraduate clinical courses through innovative pedagogy to solve health problems. “Students Working in Interdisciplinary Groups” (SWIG) was the pedagogical practice used to facilitate a collaborative practice between nursing and communication students. The complex health problem regarded the education gap between healthcare workers and the delivery of care to patients identified as LGBTQIA+. The students’ collaboration resulted in the creation of an educational video to instruct future nurses in LGBTQIA+ delivery of care. We assessed the effectiveness of the collaborative experience and the impact of the educational video on students. The positive assessment outcomes confirm the importance of integrating collaborative practices into nursing courses to foster students’ professional development.