Physical and Occupational Therapy Undergraduates' Stereotypes of One Another

Abstract

Literature suggests that increased interaction between physical therapy and occupational therapy students may improve their understanding of each other's profession. This cross-sectional study examined positive and negative stereotypes in an educational setting in which physical and occupational therapy students take over 25% of their curricular courses together. The aim of the study was to assess whether interaction between these students in and out of the classroom positively affected their views of each other, as compared with physical and occupational therapy students in previous studies who did not take classes together. Senior students, 25 physical therapy and 28 occupational therapy, completed two copies of the Health Team Stereotype Scale questionnaire exploring attitudes concerning their own chosen profession and the other participants' profession. They also completed an extracurricular activities survey to indicate how much they participated in activities outside of the classroom with students from the other profession. On the stereotype scale, physical therapy students' self-assessment compared with their assessment of occupational therapy students yielded 28 significantly (p<.05) different adjective pairs; occupational therapy students' self-assessment compared with their assessment of physical therapy students yielded 26 significantly (p<.05) different adjective pairs. The students rarely or never participated in extracurricular activities with each other. When comparing present results with those of previous studies, present subjects selected significantly fewer negative adjective pairs to describe the other profession. The results indicate a more positive view of each other's profession than in the previous studies. The interdisciplinary education model examined in our institution may have fostered positive attitudes among students in these programs.

Stereotypes in health professional students – perspectives for research about interprofessional learning, teaching and working / Stereotype von Lernenden in den Gesundheitsprofessionen – Perspektiven für die Forschung zum interprofessionellen Lernen, Lehren und Arbeiten

“…Die größten Unterschiede zeigen sich zwischen Ärzten/-innen und Pflegenden (Hean et al, 2006a;Lindqvist et al, 2005aLindqvist et al, , 2005b (Michalec et al, 2013;Hean et al, 2006b). Weiterhin belegen die Befunde eine Favorisierung der eigenen Profession, mitunter bereits zu Studienbeginn (Katz et al, 2001;Kamps et al, 1996;Streed & Stoecker, 1991;Parker & Chan,1986;Michalec et al, 2013 (Hind et al, 2003).…”

Évaluation préliminaire d'un séminaire pilote mixte "médecine/orthophonie", préalable au développement d'un programme interprofessionnel en sciences de la santé

“…Dans la mesure où ces perceptions conditionnent la qualité des relations interprofessionnelles [15] , il paraît essentiel d'évaluer l'impact de notre dispositif d'apprentissage interprofessionnel au regard d'une amé-lioration de ces relations. On sait par exemple que les différents professionnels de santé nourrissent à l'égard des uns et des autres de nombreux de sté-réotypes professionnels et on peut raisonnablement faire l'hypothèse, sur la base de la littérature publiée sur ce sujet [9,[15][16][17][18][19] , que ces stéréotypes se construisent tôt chez les étudiants. Mais, il est égale-ment nécessaire de connaître le point de vue des apprenants sur l'expérience d'apprentissage interprofessionnel elle-même et de son impact potentiel sur leur pratique future.…”

“…Ces propositions sont une adaptation d'items extraits de l'échelle construite par Rudland et Mires [9] pour l'évaluation de la personnalité des médecins et des infirmières, ainsi que de l'échelle d'évaluation des stéréotypes dans les équipes de soins de santé (The Health Team Stereotyping Scale) de Osgood et al [17,32] .…”

“…Nous n'avons pas trouvé chez nos participants de stéréotypes ou de préjugés négatifs importants des uns à l'égard des autres, contrairement aux ré-sultats d'études antérieures [9,16,17,19] . Toutefois, les informations récoltées nous invitent à penser que les deux groupes d'étudiants stagiaires diffèrent quant à la représentation qu'ils ont de leur future profession.…”

Moderating the stereotypical views of health and social care students: the role of interprofessional education

“…Studies evaluating IPE participants' stereotypical views about other professions have almost all employed rating scales which involve respondents assessing the relevance of certain characteristics to different health and social care professions. Examples include Carpenter's (1995) scale of eight positive and negative characteristics, which was subsequently used in a further three studies (Hind et al, 2003;Rudland & Mires, 2005;Tunstall-Pedoe, Rink & Hilton, 2003); the Health Team Stereotype Scale, used to measure stereotyping among occupational therapy, physiotherapy and podiatry students (Katz, Titiloye, & Baloun, 2001;Mandy et al, 2004;Parker & Chan, 1986); (Hawkes, Nunney & Lindqvist, 2013;Jacobsen & Lindqvist, 2009;Lindqvist et al, 2005b); and the scale originally developed by Barnes et al (2000), subsequently refined and modified by Hean and colleagues and used again in Canada and in the UK as the Student Stereotypes Rating Questionnaire (Ateah et al, 2011;Bell & Allain, 2011). Studies using these scales have consistently shown that students rate the characteristics of each professional group differently which strongly supports the view that students hold preconceived, stereotypical beliefs about the characteristics of certain health and social care professions.…”