General Practice and Dental Public Health, School of Dentistry, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, United States.
Office of Health Policy and Legislative Affairs, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, United States.
Front Public Health. 2020 Dec 10;8:602957. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.602957. eCollection 2020.
The silent epidemic of oral diseases disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities, especially the elderly who have complex needs for healthcare. This study was to evaluate a pilot oral health interprofessional program that provided hands-on experiences for students across four disciplines: dentistry, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. The 8-weeks program was built on four pedagogical principles: care, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration coupled with the 4Ms model: what matters, medication, mentation, and mobility. The curriculum contained four scenarios of a dental complication in an elderly: Alzheimer's Disease, oral cancer, Parkinson's Disease, and stroke. A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate this pilot program. The average score of knowledge and attitude has increased from 2.94 to 4.39 ( < 0.05) on a 5-point Likert scale. The qualitative responses also showed that students became more confident in practicing within the Age-Friendly health system. By the end of the program, all students recognized the significance of the interprofessional program to improve their knowledge and skills to work with professionals across disciplines. Two key features that contributed to the success of the program were (1) an interprofessional education that increased students' awareness of other types of services and (2) four scenarios that allowed students to solve the case and gain hands-on experience. An interprofessional education may equip students with competence to address the health of geriatric patients. Materials used in this study could be shared and adapted to prepare learners for other scenarios that require interprofessional team practice.
口腔疾病的无声流行不成比例地影响到弱势社区，特别是那些对医疗保健有复杂需求的老年人。本研究评估了一个口腔健康跨专业试点项目，该项目为四个学科的学生提供了实践经验：牙科、医学、护理和药学。该 8 周项目建立在四个教学原则之上：关怀、批判性思维、沟通和协作，以及 4Ms 模式：重要的事情、药物、思维和活动能力。课程包含了老年人中四种牙科并发症的场景：老年痴呆症、口腔癌、帕金森病和中风。采用混合方法评估了这个试点项目。知识和态度的平均得分从 2.94 提高到了 4.39（<0.05），采用 5 分制的李克特量表。定性反应也表明，学生在实践中对老年友善健康系统更有信心。项目结束时，所有学生都认识到跨专业项目对提高他们与跨学科专业人士合作的知识和技能的重要性。项目成功的两个关键特征是：（1）跨专业教育提高了学生对其他类型服务的认识；（2）四个场景允许学生解决案例并获得实践经验。跨专业教育可以使学生具备应对老年患者健康问题的能力。本研究中使用的材料可以共享和改编，以培养学习者应对需要跨专业团队实践的其他场景。
