Exploring Effects of Interprofessional Education on Undergraduate Students Behaviour: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background: One way to improve the quality of palliative care for elderly patients is to use an interprofessional team approach, which may be encouraged through interprofessional education (IPE). However, the effectiveness of IPE interventions has yet to be proven. We therefore designed a randomized controlled trial using a simulated practice setting to measure the effects of an IPE intervention on medical students’ clinical behaviour.Methods: Undergraduate nursing (N = 20) and medical (N = 20) students were evenly assigned to either an intervention or a control group. Students in the intervention group received interprofessional curriculum (12 teaching units), and the control group was given written material containing the content of the IPE curriculum. Using a pre-post design, clinical behaviour of matched pairs of nursing and medical students was analyzed for qualitative (care objectives) and quantitative aspects of communication (initiation, interruptions, speaking time, and exchanged information items). Statistical analyses included chi-square, Fisher’s exact, and t-tests, where appropriate.Results: Care objective scores improved in both groups (categories N = 6, p-range = intervention group: .001–.630; control group: .001–.888). Interruptions and speaking time showed no change between or within groups, while the number of nursing student-initiated contacts increased (p = .0007). The number of information items exchanged increased significantly in both the intervention group (Pre: M = 9.65, SD = 1.79; Post: M = 12.35, SD = 1.87; p = .001) and the control group (Pre: M = 8.75, SD = 2.59; Post: M = 11.75, SD = 2.22; p = .001).Conclusions:We found a moderate effect of IPE on a change in interprofessionalcommunication style.

A BEME systematic review of the effects of interprofessional education: BEME Guide No. 39

“…They also confirm that these levels may however initially be rather idealistic" (p562). The existence of poorer attitudes towards IPE was also noted by Just et al (2010) who reported that students with such attitudes, "tend to gain the least from IPE courses" (p194). A key element in the formation of these different attitudes towards IPE was seen as the professional socialisation processes (e.g.…”

“…However, as noted above, most studies tended to include around 2 to 6 different professions with numbers usually ranging from 30-100 learners (e.g. Ammentorp et al 2007;Just et al 2010;Richardson et al 2010).…”

“…Hollenberg et al 2009;Just et al 2010), most studies paid little attention to this issue. The one exception was LeFlore et al (2009) who compared facilitated debriefing with selfdirected learning by students after team simulated clinical scenarios.…”

“…Often, an IPE course would be developed by a project steering group or curriculum development committee (Just et al 2010;Lineker et al 2012;Anderson & Thorpe 2014) who at times, worked with other stakeholders such as healthcare providers, researchers, and/or patients (e.g. Hollenberg et al 2009;Byrnes et al 2012).…”

Evaluating an evidence-based curriculum in undergraduate palliative care education: piloting a phase II exploratory trial for a complex intervention

“…A precise manual of the developed UPCE curriculum and the respective teaching units can be found as Additional file 1 in the online section for this article. This publication assesses the effect on medical students completing the whole UPCE curriculum as an intervention, while a series of publications covers detailed analyses of the curriculum’s modules [17,18]. Qualitative analysis of encounters between dying patients and medical students during real patient contact in this curriculum has been covered by a master thesis at King’s College London, UK.…”