Readiness for Interprofessional Education Among Preclinical and Clinical Year Medical Students - Does It Change Over the Years?

ABSTRACT

@#Introduction: Health care involves team work. Physicians, nurses, pharmacists and social workers need to work in collaboration to deliver quality health care. It is therefore vital that team work and collaboration are integrated into the training of medical students. In a medical school where interprofessional education has not been introduced, the preclinical students are trained in silos whereas the clinical students have interprofessional experiences in hospital and community centers. This study was conducted to explore medical student’s receptiveness for interprofessional education and to identify any differences in attitude among the preclinical and clinical year students. Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional study design using purposive sampling technique at a private medical school in Malaysia. Participants completedthe standardized Readiness for inter-professional learning Scale and the data was analyzed. Results: 436 students witha mean age of 22 years participated in this study. Among them, 170 were from preclinical and 266 were from clinical years Both the groups scored high on team work while clinical students scored better than preclinical students in understanding professional identity and recognizing their roles. Conclusion: This study shows a readiness among medical students for IPE. Clinical year medical student’s attitude was similar to preclinical students.