ABSTRACT
Interprofessional education needs a stronger theoretical basis informed by the challenges facing collaboration across professions. This study explores the impact of power distance (perception of role hierarchy), on team effectiveness as mediated by team cohesion and psychological safety (believe one can speak up without the fear of negative consequences). Furthermore, it tests for differences between medical and nursing students in these concepts. Final-year medical and nursing students completed a paper survey on study constructs at the end of a three-session, 6-h interprofessional critical care simulation activity. Two hundred and forty-three (76% response rate) retrospective surveys found the relationship between power distance and perceived team effectiveness was mediated by perceptions of team cohesion and psychological safety, suggesting these concepts influence desired interprofessional collaboration. There were no differences between medical and nursing students on study variables. While interprofessional training typically focuses on general attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and on the acquisition and demonstration of knowledge and skills, these findings suggest important team concepts underlying effective collaboration may include perceptions of psychological safety and power distance. These concepts can be key drivers of cohesion and effectiveness during interprofessional simulation exercises and may be targets for future interventions.
Subject(s)
Group Processes , Interprofessional Relations , Patient Care Team/organization & administration , Students, Medical/psychology , Students, Nursing/psychology , Adult , Attitude of Health Personnel , Cooperative Behavior , Education, Medical/organization & administration , Education, Nursing/organization & administration , Female , Humans , Male , Patient Care Team/standards , Perception , Power, Psychological , Retrospective Studies , Safety , Simulation Training/organization & administrationABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Interprofessional education is intended to train practitioners to collaboratively address challenges in healthcare delivery, and interprofessional simulation-based education (IPSE) provides realistic, contextual learning experiences in which roles, responsibilities, and professional identity can be learned, developed, and assessed. Reducing negative stereotypes within interprofessional relationships is a prime target for IPSE. OBJECTIVES: We sought to understand whether perceptions of interprofessional education and provider stereotypes change among nursing and medical students after participating in IPSE. We also sought to determine whether changes differed based on the student's discipline. DESIGN: This was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study. SETTING: The study took place at a large mid-Atlantic public university with a comprehensive health science campus. PARTICIPANTS: 147 senior Bachelors of Science in Nursing students and 163 fourth-year medical students participated. METHODS: Students were grouped into interprofessional teams for a two-week period and participated in three two-hour simulations focused on collaboration around acutely ill patients. At the beginning of the first session, they completed a pretest survey with demographic items and measures of their perceptions of interprofessional clinical education, stereotypes about doctors, and stereotypes about nurses. They completed a posttest with the same measures after the third session. RESULTS: 251 students completed both the pretest and posttest surveys. On all three measures, students showed an overall increase in scores after the IPSE experience. In comparing the change by student discipline, medical students showed little change from pretest to posttest on stereotypes of doctors, while nursing students had a significant increase in positive perceptions about doctors. No differences were noted between disciplines on changes in stereotypes of nurses. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that a short series of IPSE experiences resulted in improved perceptions of interprofessional practice and changes in stereotypical views of each profession even when the experience was not directly designed to address these issues. Differences observed between nursing and medical students should be explored further.
Subject(s)
Attitude of Health Personnel , Cooperative Behavior , Interprofessional Relations , Perception , Simulation Training , Education, Medical, Undergraduate/methods , Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate/methods , Humans , Patient Care Team/trends , Problem-Based Learning , Stereotyped Behavior , Students, Medical/psychology , Students, Nursing/psychology , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
This study assessed the effectiveness of a learner-centered simulation intervention designed to improve the communication skills of preprofessional sophomore nursing students. An innovative teaching strategy in which communication skills are taught to nursing students by using trained actors who served as standardized family members in a clinical learning laboratory setting was evaluated using a two-group posttest design. In addition to current standard education, the intervention group received a formal training session presenting a framework for communication and a 60-minute practice session with the standardized family members. Four domains of communication-introduction, gathering of information, imparting information, and clarifying goals and expectations-were evaluated in the control and intervention groups in individual testing sessions with a standardized family member. The intervention group performed better than the control group in all four tested domains related to communication skills, and the difference was statistically significant in the domain of gathering information (p = 0.0257).
