The effectiveness of a shared conference experience in improving undergraduate medical and nursing students’ attitudes towards inter-professional education in an Asian country: a before and after study

BMC Medical Education

Research Article

Sok Ying Liaw¹  Gerald CH Koh²  Wilbert HH Ho³  Yun Qing Koh³  John KC Tam³  Amelia ZE Chua³  Daniel SY Lim³  Daryl YK Lo³ 

[1] Alice Lee Center for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore;Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore;Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore;

关键词: Medical Student;    Healthcare Profession;    Prior Exposure;    Nursing Student;    Conference Participant;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12909-015-0509-9

 received in 2015-08-01, accepted in 2015-12-10,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn recent years, increasing emphasis has been placed on the importance of collaboration within multi-disciplinary healthcare teams, so as to facilitate holistic patient care and thus allow improved treatment outcomes. There is hence an urgent need to educate healthcare undergraduates early in their professional careers on the importance of and complexities involved in cooperating with counterparts from other allied healthcare professions. In conjunction with this, a milestone student-led conference for undergraduate students, the 9th Student Medical-Nursing Education Conference (SMEC), was organised in 2013 to provide a unique opportunity for shared learning among the entire cohort of undergraduate medical and nursing students in Singapore matriculating in that year.MethodsThis study evaluated the effectiveness of the 9th SMEC 2013 as a shared conference experience in improving the attitudes of undergraduate medical and nursing students in Singapore towards inter-professional education (IPE). A 19-point Readiness for Inter-Professional Learning Scale (RIPLS) questionnaire comprising three subscales was administered to participants both before and after the conference. 352 responses were collected, giving a response rate of 75.1 %. Results were analysed using paired-samples t-tests with statistical significance set at p = 0.05.ResultsImprovements in overall scores for both medical and nursing students were reported for all three RIPLS subscales. Examining the RIPLS items individually, significant improvement in scores for both medical and nursing students was obtained in all 19 items. Prior exposure to IPE activities was not a predictor of improvement in IPE attitudes.ConclusionThe authors propose that student-led jointly-organised conference experiences are effective in improving healthcare students’ attitudes towards IPE. This study provides valuable insights to facilitate the development of further IPE programs to allow for the rapid and effective promotion of cooperation and collaboration between students across various healthcare disciplines.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Chua et al. 2015