Although interprofessional education and collaborative practice have gained increasing attention over the past five decades, development of rigorous tools to assess related competencies is still in infancy. The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to evaluate health professions students' self-efficacy in interprofessional collaborative competency and to assess the instrument's psychometric properties. We developed a new instrument based on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative's (IPEC) Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice. In a cross-sectional study design, 660 students from 11 health programmes at an urban university in the Midwest USA completed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative Competency Self Efficacy Tool (IPECC-SET). Rasch analysis evaluated the following: (1) functioning of the instrument; (2) fit of items within each subscale to a unidimensional construct; (3) person-response validity; (4) person-separation reliability; and (5) differential item functioning in relation to gender and ethnicity. After removing seven items with suboptimal fit, each subscale demonstrated high internal validity. Two items demonstrated differential item functioning (DIF) for "Gender" and none for "Race/Ethnicity." Our findings provide early evidence of IPECC-SET as a valid measure of self-efficacy for interprofessional competence for health professions students. Additional research is warranted to establish external validity of the new instrument by conducting studies across institutions.
Assessing competence in interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) among health professions students is a high priority. This cross-sectional study built on the authors' prior work that led to the development of the 38-item Interprofessional Education Collaborative Competency Self Efficacy Tool (IPECC-SET), an instrument to evaluate health professions students' self-efficacy in interprofessional collaborative competency, and addressed two primary questions. First, could a unidimensional scale based on the IPEC competencies and assessing perceived self-efficacy for competence in ICP and be constructed? Second, could a shorter version of that instrument still meet criteria for unidimensionality and retain the ability to separate students in distinct levels of perceived self-efficacy for competence in ICP? Study participants were two cohorts of students from 11 health professions programs participating in an institutional interprofessional immersion event in 2015 and 2016. Statistical stepwise analyses were conducted using a Rasch rating scale model. The original 38 IPECC-SET items did not meet the criteria to generate a valid unidimensional measure of self-efficacy for competence in ICP, but could be condensed into a 27-item scale that met all set criteria for unidimensionality, with an explained variance of 61.2% and a separation index of 3.02. A shorter, 9-item scale demonstrated a separation index of 2.21. The nine items included also demonstrated a relatively equivalent range (54.93-45.65) as compared to the 27-item scale (57.26-46.16). Findings confirm empirically the conceptual suggestion from our earlier work that the four dimensions in the original IPEC competencies contribute to a shared underlying construct: perceived competence in interprofessional collaboration. Given the emphasis on ICP, psychometrically sound instruments are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of educational efforts to promote competency for ICP. Based on the findings from this study, both the IPECC-SET 27 and IPECC-SET 9 can be used to measure perceived self-efficacy for competence in ICP.
This study is the first to report on foreign-educated physical therapists in the United States. The findings of this study will provide important and useful information to others dealing with physical therapy professional and workforce issues.
Vaccine hesitancy has been observed around the world, but there is a paucity of data among a broad range of U.S. health professional students. The goal of this report is to present findings about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among a cross-section of U.S. health professional students and determine if hesitancy varies by demographic characteristics, health science college, and other factors. A cross-sectional analysis of HOLISTIC Cohort Study participants enrolled from April 14 2021 to May 5 2021 at seven health sciences colleges in the University of Illinois Chicago was used. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to evaluate vaccine hesitancy items and identify domains. Among 555 health professional students, three domains (perceived benefit, trustworthiness, and risk) contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Significant differences were observed in the domains among students of different races as well as vaccination history. Compared to students in the College of Medicine, students in the Colleges of Applied Health Science (OR 0.43; CI [0.19–0.96]), Pharmacy (OR 0.38; CI [0.17–0.87]), Nursing (OR 0.35; CI [0.16–0.78]), and Social Work (OR 0.30; CI [0.11–0.78]) reported lower perceived benefit. Compared to students in the College of Medicine, students in the College of Applied Health Sciences (OR 0.39; CI [0.17–0.94]), Dentistry (OR 0.27; CI [0.10–0.76]), Nursing (OR 0.38; CI [0.16–0.94]), and Social work (OR 0.31; CI [0.11–0.86]) reported more trustworthiness and more concerns about risk (OR 2.80; CI [1.15–6.81] for College of Applied Health Sciences, OR 9.12; CI [2.80–29.75] for Dentistry, OR 3.77; CI [1.47–9.65] for Nursing, OR 3.14; CI [1.02–9.67] for Social Work). Our findings suggest the need for a tailored vaccination strategy among different subgroups of health professional students.
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