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Conroy C.1
1Midwestern University, Elk Grove Village, United States
Background: Introduction of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) core competencies for the advancement of interprofessional practice and education was a significant milestone for interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) the United States. These competencies guide many professional regulatory organizations, such as The Commission for Accreditation of Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) in the United States, in the development of criteria to support collaborative skills by new graduates in the profession. CAPTE currently has multiple evaluative criteria in place to ensure that new physical therapists are competent in vital collaborative skills.
The IPEC core competencies were developed to provide educators with the key components for successful IPCP.
The IPEC core competencies are organized into four domains
Values and Ethics
Roles and Responsibilities
Communication
Teams and Teamwork
While there is no current literature specific to barriers in application of the IPEC core competencies, research into interprofessional collaboration and education has identified stereotyping (DEF: beliefs about the characteristics, attributes and behaviors of members of certain groups) as a potential barrier.
The evolution of any healthcare profession includes a struggle to define its identity. Through these struggles professions tend to build uni-professional silos that have common language, values and problem-solving approaches. As professions work to develop their own cultures, they often form comparative views of other professions that are stereotypes of people who work within those professions. IPCP works against these uni-professional silos, but this leaves a gap in the normal development of professional identity. So, is this normal professional evolutionary process, which includes stereotyping, detrimental to development of IPCP skills?
The IPEC core competencies were developed to provide educators with the key components for successful IPCP.
The IPEC core competencies are organized into four domains
Values and Ethics
Roles and Responsibilities
Communication
Teams and Teamwork
While there is no current literature specific to barriers in application of the IPEC core competencies, research into interprofessional collaboration and education has identified stereotyping (DEF: beliefs about the characteristics, attributes and behaviors of members of certain groups) as a potential barrier.
The evolution of any healthcare profession includes a struggle to define its identity. Through these struggles professions tend to build uni-professional silos that have common language, values and problem-solving approaches. As professions work to develop their own cultures, they often form comparative views of other professions that are stereotypes of people who work within those professions. IPCP works against these uni-professional silos, but this leaves a gap in the normal development of professional identity. So, is this normal professional evolutionary process, which includes stereotyping, detrimental to development of IPCP skills?
Purpose: The purpose of this review is to illustrate how stereotyping plays a significant role as a barrier to successful implementation of the IPEC competencies. The IPEC core competencies will be used as a framework for IPCP and each domain will be addressed.
Methods: A review of the current literature was performed using the following databases: PubMed, Cinahl, and ERIC
The following key words were used: Stereotyping, interprofessional education, competencies, barriers, interprofessional collaboration.
Examples of how stereotyping can function as a barrier to the application of the IPEC core competencies were identified from all identified studies.
Examples of stereotyping were organized based on the four domains of the IPEC core competencies.
Results: The potential for stereotyping to act as a barrier to achieving the IPEC competencies appears to be present in all four domains.
One productive method to introduce the competencies with minimal stereotyping may be to allow students to discuss their preconceived ideas and learn about a profession from the students in that profession. Additionally, these efforts should occur early or prior to actual collaborative activities.
Methods to dispel stereotyping, such as Allports Contact Theory, have a strong support in the literature.
Conclusion(s): Having a better understanding of stereotype formation, maintenance and tools for addressing stereotypes will further improve the efforts of interprofessional educators to write meaningful and effective IPE curriculum.
Implications: Understanding the role stereotyping may play in achieving the IPEC competencies will further improve how educators utilize the competencies in their curriculum.
Funding acknowledgements: There were no sources of funding utilized for this project.
Topic: Education
Ethics approval: As a literature review ethics approval was not required.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
