Comparing interprofessional undergraduate integrative medicine education online and in person

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic an interprofessional integrative medicine module for undergraduate students including the study programmes medicine, nursery, physiotherapy, midwifery science, occupational therapy and logopaedics could not be performed in presence. This study describes the implementation and evaluation of an interprofessional online module in complementary and integrative medicine education in comparison to a traditional face-to-face module. Methods: The interprofessional online module consisted of ten 90-minute seminars in winter semester 2020/2021 basics of complementary and integrative medicine, acupuncture/Chinese medicine, manual medicine/therapy, aromatherapy, anthroposophic medicine, osteopathy, homeopathy, nutritional therapy, scientific approaches in complementary and integrative medicine, and an interprofessional case discussion. Students were asked to complete an online-questionnaire before and after the module in order to enable pre-post comparisons. Results were compared with pre-post evaluations of the traditional module in winter semester 2018/2019, summer semester 2019 and winter semester 2019/2020. Results: In total, 127 students participated in the online module, 106 students in three semesters of the traditional module due to limited participation in presence. The online module was evaluated with 1.8 on a scale from 1 ‚very good‘ to 6 ‚unsatisfactory‘, the traditional module with 1.6. Students assessed the module as similarly well organized (p=0.326);online students evaluated their learning gains smaller than traditional students (p=0.011). Whether students preferred online education, traditional education or (part-)presence education that is streamed online, changed between the themes of the seminars manual medicine/therapy (74 %, n=31), acupuncture (64 %, n=27), and osteopathy (64 %, n=27) were rather preferred in presence or (part-)presence. Conclusions: An online module in interprofessional undergraduate integrative medicine education is feasible and highly appreciated by students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The module will be revised based on the students‘ evaluations and offered in summer semester 2021. Keywords Integrative Medicine, Complementary Therapies, Interprofessional Education, Online Education, Learning