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J. Sharp1, V. Garner1
1University of Liverpool, Health Sciences, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) has been defined as two or more professions “learning with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and quality of care” (Centre for Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) 2002). Steven et al (2017)highlight that both healthcare regulators and academic institutions consider it be an important aspect of the healthcare professional education, with the view that enhancing IPE will improve collaborative interprofessional practice in the workplace and the overall patient experience. IPE is part of six undergraduate nursing and allied health profession programmes within the School of Health Sciences (SoHS), where students gain an awareness of the roles and responsibilities of others, but not the practical components of each other’s skills, hence the need to investigate this further.
Purpose: The purpose of this observational study was to investigate the experiences of second year undergraduate physiotherapy and nursing students during a skills exchange session.
Methods: Second year physiotherapy and nursing students were divided into small groups and allocated a skill that they would share with the other profession. Using observational research, two ‘complete observers’ collected data as the small groups demonstrated their profession specific skill and answered questions about the task. Data was collected by carefully observing the activities and capturing the commentaries of both physiotherapy and nursing students.
Results: From observation of the activities each professional group clearly demonstrated pride in their knowledge, in turn this increased their confidence. In the relaxed format students asked questions of each other, about the skill, their respective profession and their clinical experiences. In turn, increasing knowledge of the others role. This allowed misconceptions to be overcome and a gradual awareness of exactly the other profession’s role in a ward setting. For example, Physiotherapy students reported increased awareness of wound management which reduced their anxiety when treating patients with a dressing. Nursing students indicated that their improved knowledge about walking aids would be beneficial in the ward and A & E settings. They also reported that an awareness of bed exercises would encourage them to reinforce these exercises and improve patient outcomes. Overall, comments were extremely positive, as all students valued the opportunity to share the skills they had acquired, whilst acknowledging how professions could work together.
Conclusion(s): Observational research highlights that sharing specific professional skills develops collaborative working and enhances the student experience. Students valued the opportunity to share skills, this developed their confidence in presenting information, sharing their knowledge and promoting teamworking. Including skills exchange across the School of Health Sciences would potentially be beneficial and this will be introduced as part of future IPE delivery
Implications: As a result of this project the skills exchange will become part of the SoHS IPE. Each profession will demonstrate a key skill to other professions to increase their knowledge and understanding of the skills, which may increase their confidence in presenting information and increasing collaborative working.
Funding, acknowledgements: No funding was required
Keywords: Interprofessional education, Knowledge and Skills exchange, physiotherapy and nursing students
Topic: Education: methods of teaching & learning
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: University of Liverpool
Committee: Research Committee (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Reason: This was an observational study that took place during a teaching session.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
