Effectiveness of an Interprofessional Education Module on Care of Autistic Children in Enhancing the Interprofessional Competencies among Students of Healthcare Professions: A Study Protocol

Abstract

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorders are neurodevelopmental disorders that are being identified in children in current days due to the emerging technological and healthcare advances. Most often, children require specialized care from various healthcare practitioners by referral systems which requires parents/ caregivers to take children from one place to another. Interprofessional Practice is a collaborative approach in professional care where healthcare providers work with people from within their own profession, with people outside their profession and with patients and their families. The process becomes laborious when practitioners do not appreciate the concept of Interprofessional Education. Being the future workforce, students from health professions should learn together to have better understanding of each other's roles and responsibilities and learn to have effective team communication. A collaborative approach is crucial in autism, to enable quality care for well-being and assist to provide early and comprehensive evaluation and appropriate interventions.The objective of the study is to develop an Interprofessional Education Module on care of autistic children for Students of Healthcare professions and evaluate its effectiveness in enhancing the Interprofessional Competencies among them.Method: Quantitative pre-test-post-test approach. Phase 1 -development of the Module and Assessment Tool; Phase 2 -testing the Tool among 40 students from selected disciplines. Module and Tool will be prepared based on review of literature, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and needs assessment. Reflective summaries will document the Interprofessional Education experience of the students.Discussion: There are no comparable method of Interprofessional Education for care of children with autism, therefore, appraisal by experts will be considered as a critical step in validating the module and tool. Descriptive and Inferential Statistics will be used for analysis.

Health professionals' education related to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A scoping review

“…Interprofessional education and practice (IPE) competencies have been developed (Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), 2016). Only five articles discussed IPE‐specific competencies, all of which were published during or after 2017 (Beverly & Wooster, 2018, 2020; Jones et al, 2015; Self et al, 2017; Solomon‐Calvin et al, 2021). Disability‐related competencies were not described in any of the articles reviewed.…”