Perspectives of practising pharmacists towards interprofessional education and collaborative practice in Qatar

Abstract

Background Healthcare is provided by a variety of different professionals, including pharmacists who are integral members of the team, and all are expected to work collaboratively to provide quality care. Little is known about the perceptions of pharmacists in Qatar towards interprofessional collaboration. Positive attitudes towards interprofessional education are essential to successful implementation of interprofessional collaboration. Therefore, to develop effective collaboration strategies in practice settings, it was essential to survey the attitudes of practising pharmacists towards collaboration. Objective To explore the awareness, views, attitudes and perceptions of practising pharmacists in Qatar towards interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Setting Community, hospital and primary healthcare settings in Qatar. Methods This was a two-staged sequential explanatory mixed method design. It utilised a quantitative survey (Stage 1), based on a modified version of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale. This was followed by a qualitative stage, utilising focus groups (Stage 2). Main outcome measures (1) Qatar pharmacists' attitudes towards interprofessional education and collaborative practice; (2) Practising pharmacists' perspectives in relation to enablers, barriers and recommendations regarding interprofessional education and collaborative practice. Results 63% of the practising pharmacists (n = 178) responded to the survey. Three focus groups followed (total n = 14). High scores indicating readiness and positive attitudes towards interprofessional education were reported for pharmacists working in hospital, community and primary healthcare settings. Qualitative analysis identified three overarching themes in relation to the enablers, barriers and recommendations for practising pharmacists working collaboratively. The enabling themes were: professional and patient related benefits, and current positive influences in Qatar; the barriers were patients' negative perceptions; the status of the pharmacy profession and current working practices and processes; the recommendations related to improving patients' perceptions about pharmacists and enhancing the status of pharmacy profession in Qatar. The findings from this study highlighted two major observations: the lack of existence of collaborative practice and hierarchy and power play. Conclusion Pharmacists demonstrated willingness and readiness to develop interprofessional learning and collaborative practice with significant steps already taken towards improving collaborative working practices in different care settings.

Pharmacy academics’ perspectives toward interprofessional Education prior to its implementation in Qatar: a qualitative study

“…One of the key challenges highlighted in this study is the lack of collaborative practice in Qatar and the existence of a hierarchical system. This is similar to findings from others studies which focussed on pharmacy students and practising pharmacist perspectives toward IPE and collaborative practice in Qatar [45, 46]. Although IPE was perceived as an important component in overcoming this, it was also felt that these hierarchal differences could impede any initiatives, including IPE because of the more traditional attitudes and culture.…”

Perspectives of primary care physicians and pharmacists on interprofessional collaboration in Kuwait: A quantitative study

“…Quantitative and qualitative studies have been performed worldwide to investigate the attitudes, experience, preferences and barriers to physician-pharmacist collaboration [22,23,[25][26][27]31,[33][34][35][36][37][38]. However, few such studies have been conducted in the Middle Eastern region: three qualitative studies (Qatar and UAE) [23,34] and two quantitative studies (Iraq and Iran) [26,31].…”

Qatar—Sustaining Interprofessional Collaboration in Collaborative Partnership with Other Universities

“…The committee includes representatives from all the health care schools in Qatar as nominated by the respective deans based on their academic portfolio and familiarity with their respective curriculum (Table 7.1). Another opportunity to improve and ensure that planned IPE initiatives work best in the context of their institutions was to measure stakeholder readiness for IPE (El-Awaisi, El Hajj, Joseph, & Diack, 2018a, 2018bEl-Awaisi, Joseph, El Hajj, & Diack, 2019). Overall, the process provided opportunities for key stakeholders to plan IPE activities that are effective and relevant to our students.…”

“…Since the establishment of IPE, research in this area has started to emerge. This varies from projects focused on the perspective of various key stakeholders to IPE (El-Awaisi, Diack, Joseph, & El Hajj, 2016;El-Awaisi, El Hajj, et al, 2018a, 2018bWilbur & Kelly, 2015;Zolezzi et al, 2017) to others focused on the actual experiences of IPE Wilby, Al-Abdi, El-Awaisi, & Diab, 2016;Wilby et al, 2015). There are also reviews (El-Awaisi, Joseph, El Hajj, & Diack, 2017;El-Awaisi, Wilby, et al, 2017;Johnson & Carragher, 2018) and a description of the steps to follow in introducing IPE into health care curricula .…”