Interprofessional Education Impacts on Health Professions Student Attitudes and Perceptions: A Systematic Review
Purpose/Hypothesis: Interprofessional education (IPE) is an educational methodology that allows different health professions to learn with, from, and about each other in a unique environment conducive with collaborative learning. Due to the complex nature of issues related to health and disability, there is an increasing need for interprofessional collaboration among healthcare practitioners. The purpose of this systematic review is to determine the effectiveness of IPE in students of the health professions.
Number of Subjects: NA. This is a systematic review of the literature.
Materials and Methods: An article search was conducted using PubMed and CINAHL databases incorporating the following eligibility criteria: IPE including students from 3 or more healthcare professions, IPE exposure included in academic coursework, studies reporting outcomes measuring attitudes and/or perceptions, and results reported in quantitative measures. The articles were screened by title, abstract, and full text according to eligibility. Data was extracted from the selected articles for analysis.
Results: The search yielded 870 total articles. Following all screenings, seven articles remained to be included in the review. All studies reviewed yielded significant results with p-values ranging from <0.001 to 0.043 in regard to IPE among students of the health professions.
Conclusions: Evidence from this review suggested that IPE activities were an effective tool for improving healthcare students’ attitudes, perceptions, and self-efficacy in preparation for collaboration with other members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team.
Clinical Relevance: The World Health Organization has cited IPE activities as a powerful learning tool in the efforts to improve healthcare delivery, with effective interprofessional collaborations resulting in decreased medical errors, increased patient satisfaction, and improved patient care.