Changing Attitudes Toward Teamwork Using a Remote Educational Model During a Pandemic
Background/Aims
Interprofessional education (IPE) can have a significant impact on learner attitudes and ultimately improve clinical outcomes. The recent pandemic has likely negatively impacted our ability to teach IPE content. At our institution we converted our in-person IPE program to remote which incorporated on-line educational modules with small group sessions. While attitudes towards teamwork likely take years of education and experience, we had some initial evidence that our in-person program could improve attitudes; however it was unclear if a fully remote program could exhibit the same improvements. Our hypothesis was that first-year health science student teamwork attitudes would improve with our program.
Design or Methodology
Students from our health science center participated in the Remote Interprofessional Platform for Learning and Education (RIPPLE) program. The experience one introductory session followed by 4 sessions throughout the first year (all remote). The introductory session was preceded by mandatory on-line modules. Sessions was led by trained facilitators and educational methodologies included panel discussion, reflective writing, role plays, and case-based discussions. Using the Nebraska Interprofessional Education Attitudes Scale (NIPEAS), students were assessed prior to and following the program. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.
Results
637 students participated in the program. Six-hundred students fully completed the pre-NIPEAS and 232 (39%) afterwards. The overall NIPEAS score increased from a mean of 4.30 to 4.43. This is compared to 2019 pre and post NIPEAS of 4.36 to 4.44.
Conclusion
Modifying attitudes towards teamwork especially early in healthcare education is important. Despite our transition to a fully remote teaching platform we demonstrated a slight improvement in student attitudes towards teamwork. Further analysis will occur after additional responses and analysis by the NIPEAS subsets, years of experience and discipline as well as comparison to previous years.
