Promoting Interprofessional Collaboration Among Pediatric Physical Therapy Students Through Remote Simulation

Abstract

Interprofessional collaboration must be taught in healthcare curriculum to ready graduates for the clinic, however, limited evidence is available to guide pediatric physical therapy faculty in best practices. This quantitative retrospective pretest-posttest study examined collaborative competency attainment, satisfaction, and self-confidence of 84 Doctor of Physical Therapy students from four campuses of a private university. Students participated in a live, remote simulated learning experience and completed the Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning scale and the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey-Revised. There was significant improvement in student collaborative competencies after the simulated learning experience and students were satisfied and confident in the learning experience regardless of demographics. Findings support implementation of a remote simulation for the purpose of interprofessional collaboration in pediatric physical therapy education and may relate to other fields. Future research may explore the influence of interdisciplinary, remote simulation interventions on student behavior in the clinic and patient outcomes.

Collaboration from a Distance: Remote Simulation in Hybrid Healthcare Education

“…Training students to work within a healthcare team is a universal skill, regardless of patient population, and is a necessary component within entry-level DPT programs. The quantitative results of this study support previous literature that has endorsed the use of simulatedbased learning to address self-assessed interprofessional collaborative competency attainment in physical therapy education (Andrea, Kupczynski, et al, 2022;Marion-Martins & Pinho, 2020;Sizemore et al, 2021). The qualitative results further substantiate that this type of realistic and structured learning activity is a valuable training tool.…”

“…All students in the hybrid pediatric physical therapy course participated in an interdisciplinary, remote simulation as a standard for education. Using a previous research study as a procedural model (Andrea, Kupczynski, et al, 2022), students were informed of the study and the informed consent one week prior to the learning activity. Student preparation for the simulation-based learning experience included review of patient care information, videos of patient presentation, video description of clinician roles (occupational therapist and speech language pathologist), and a peer learning activity.…”

“…The use of remote simulation to address interprofessional collaboration has been used in nursing and medicine (Jiménez-Rodríguez et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2021), and has recently emerged in physical therapy education. Andrea, Kupczynski, and McCraney (2022) described the use of remote simulation as a mode for interprofessional collaboration within an entry-level pediatric physical therapy course. Eighty-four students from an accelerated, DPT program reported an increase in collaborative competency attainment as well as satisfaction and selfconfidence in the simulated learning experience, regardless of age, race, or gender (Andrea, Kupczynski, et al, 2022).…”

“…Andrea, Kupczynski, and McCraney (2022) described the use of remote simulation as a mode for interprofessional collaboration within an entry-level pediatric physical therapy course. Eighty-four students from an accelerated, DPT program reported an increase in collaborative competency attainment as well as satisfaction and selfconfidence in the simulated learning experience, regardless of age, race, or gender (Andrea, Kupczynski, et al, 2022). As there is a paucity of evidence supporting the use of remote simulation within hybrid DPT programs, there is ample space to examine the use of such a learning method within the unique learning environment.…”

The paediatric physiotherapy curricula landscape: A survey of United Kingdom entry‐level programs

“…Further innovation in paediatric placement development would assist in providing a greater number of UK physiotherapy students with first‐hand clinical experience. While it was beyond the scope of the study to investigate how physiotherapy curriculums can increase paediatric knowledge and skills, simulation (Lowe et al., 2022) and interprofessional learning (Andrea et al., 2022) show promise and provide future research opportunities.…”