BACKGROUND

Traditionally, healthcare students have been educated in discipline-specific silos with minimal interprofessional socialisation. Interprofessional education is fundamental for interprofessional socialisation and is an essential component of healthcare education.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the effect of a large-scale interprofessional workshop implemented for first year medical, nursing and pharmacy students on changes in attitudes towards interprofessional socialisation and its perceived value.

DESIGN

A quasi-experimental study design using pre and post questionnaires.

SETTING

A Faculty of Medicine and Health at a large university in Australia.

PARTICIPANTS

1008 students from the 2018 and 2019 cohorts of pre-qualification first year medical students (n = 444), nursing (n = 461) and pharmacy (n = 103) enrolled in a graduate entry degree program participated in the workshop. Complete data sets were collected from 37.1% (n = 374) of the participants.

METHODS

The short-form Interprofessional Socialisation and Valuing Scale (ISVS-9) was administered before and after the IPE workshop. Linear mixed models were used to compare both the within group and between group pre- and post- questionnaire data. Percentages and frequencies were used to analyse data pertaining to participants' perceptions and experience of the workshop. Descriptive qualitative analysis of free-text responses was undertaken.

RESULTS

Findings indicated that 80.8% (n = 440) of participants rated their workshop experience as good/very good. 64.6% (n = 352) of participants reported that it had changed how they considered other health professionals. Significant higher (p < 0.001) post questionnaire mean scores were demonstrated for nursing (5.63, SE0.05) and pharmacy students (5.82, SE 0.11).

CONCLUSION

Findings provide support for the implementation of IPE for nursing, and pharmacy students. It is recommended that these initiatives are introduced at an early stage in their education to promote interprofessional socialisation and are repeated throughout the curricula.