The Effectiveness of an Introductory Interprofessional Course in Building Readiness for Collaboration in the Health Professions

Interprofessional Education (IPE) prepares collaborative-ready health professionals although the actual process of learning “about, from and with” each other is widely debated in the literature (World Health Organization, 2010). The goal of the study was to examine the effectiveness of an introductory IPE course in improving students’ collaboration skills. METHODS Undergraduate, health professions students completed the 11-item Self-Assessed Collaboration Skills (SACS) survey before and after completing an introductory IPE course. RESULTS Results of paired samples t-tests suggest that there were significant improvements in students’ self-assessed collaboration skills and on the learning, information sharing, and team support dimensions. DISCUSSION This study highlights the role of an introductory IPE course in improving self-assessed collaboration and teamwork skills of entry-level learners. Features of the course design that contribute to its effectiveness include: interactive class sessions, a culminating team project, and using in-class time for team meetings. CONCLUSION An introductory IPE course can be effective in improving learners’ self-assessed collaboration skills and can prepare them for future IPE courses. Received: 08/02/2017 Accepted: 02/13/2018 © 2018 Eliot, et al. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. H IP & The Effectiveness of an Introductory Interprofessional Course ORIGINAL RESEARCH 3(3):eP1141 | 2 Introduction Interprofessional Education (IPE) has been established as a widely accepted strategy for preparing health professionals to be collaborative-ready as they enter the health care system upon graduation from their respective programs (Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2015; Rogers et al., 2016; World Health Organization, 2010). However, the actual process of learning “about, from and with” each other is widely debated in the literature (World Health Organization, 2010). Some researchers advocate for IPE to be contextual, embedded into professional programs in practice settings, and other researchers feel that IPE is best initiated early in the students’ professional preparation. The best answer is likely somewhere in between with a hybrid of these approaches that begins with early courses that build readiness for collaboration followed by later courses that contextualize Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCP) with clinical integration (Dow, Blue, Konrad, Earnest, & Reeves, 2013; Freeth, Hammick, Reeves, Koppel, & Barr, 2005; Oandasan & Reeves, 2005; Reeves et al., 2016). This study focuses on the assessment of a large introductory course that is part of a comprehensive IPE program, using a newly validated instrument which allows students to self-assess collaboration skills.