Sri Lankan Undergraduate Healthcare Student’s Perceptions of Interprofessional Learning: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

1.1. Introduction: Interprofessional learning primarily aims to reduce prejudice among professionals, improve awareness of the roles and duties of other professional groups, and advance teamwork and collaborative competencies. This study was conducted in order to assess the perception of undergraduate health care professional students on interprofessional education/learning in Sri Lanka. Methods:This was a cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study conducted in 2016 on 300 undergraduate health care professional students. The study population consisted of fourthyear undergraduate healthcare professional students' in four main professional degree programs -medicine, nursing, pharmacy and occupational therapy -across two selected Universities in Sri Lanka. Quantitative data were collected through a 19-item, validated and modified questionnaire. 'the Readiness for Inter-Professional Learning Scale (RIPLS)' containing four subscales: teamwork and collaboration, negative professional identity, positive professional identity and roles and responsibilities. Means and standard deviation (SD) of the scores were calculated. All the analyses were carried out using SPSS version 20. Results:The total mean score for all four items was M= 69.15 and SD =10.97). The RIPLS total score was significantly different between genders (P= .028). Statistical difference was identified between subscales and genders. In order to comparing students' RIPLS total scores by degree programs of study a significant dif-ference was identified between each degree programs (P= <.001) due to group size are unequal. Comparing each degree programs results of the nursing students indicate higher total score as 72.08 and the pharmacy students' highlighted lowest mean score as 61.08. The respondents between 29.7% and 53% gave the highest rating for teamwork and collaboration as strongly agree. For negative professional identity, the lowest rating by 22-27% as strongly disagree. The highest rating reported as 26.7-32% for the items in positive professional identity and for roles and responsibilities the highest rating was indicated as 10-31.3% and the lowest rating were 4.7-23.3%. Conclusion:This analysis produced the level of undergraduate healthcare students' readiness for interprofessional learning in Sri Lanka.