Attitudes of Filipino health profession students toward interprofessional education: a descriptive study

ABSTRACT

The thrust of interprofessional education is to prepare health professions students to deliberately learn and work together with a common goal of providing better and safer care for service users. This study sought to describe the attitudes of health profession students toward interprofessional education and to identify which among the variables (i.e., sex, programme, year level, prior clinical and interprofessional education experiences, and level of moral development) are determinants of their attitudes toward interprofessional education. A total of 485 participants were surveyed using a validated, three-part Interprofessional Education-Attitude Scale (IPE-AS). No statistically significant difference was found between the attitudes toward interprofessional education and variables such as sex, prior clinical and interprofessional education experiences among medical, nursing, and pharmacy students. Our findings found that those with more agreeable attitudes toward interprofessional education were students in the medical programme, those from the lower year levels and those with higher stages of morality (based on Kohlberg’s stages of moral development). This suggests that IPE must be introduced across health science curricula with an intentional profiling of students about their experiences related to learning and working with students from different programmes. Moral development, as a variable in the study, also provides information as to how it can improve IPE programmes, competencies, and experiences of students in the fields of health sciences.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral development
• SPICE-R
• health professions education
• interprofessional education
• pre-registration students

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all the participants of this study and to our statistician consultant, Ms. Grace Rosales, who assisted the authors to confirm the study findings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclaimer

Part of this article was presented at the NUS-Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference 2020,

Resorts World Sentosa Island, Singapore

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Anna Karenina V Causapin

Anna Karenina Causapin MD is an Assistant Professor at the College of Medicine, Manila Central University, Caloocan City, Philippines. Apart from teaching medical students and championing IPE in her university, she is also a practicing pediatrician and a community worker. Her advocacies include child welfare, patient safety, and interprofessional education.

Michael P. Sy

Michael Palapal Sy PHD is an Associate Professor of Health Professions Education at the University of the Philippines Manila. He is an occupational therapist by profession. Apart from his research and works in occupational therapy, occupational science, justice health, and health professions education, he is also the course lead for the post-graduate interprofessional education and collaborative practice courses offered in the National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions. He champions IPE and IPC in the Philippines through the Philippine Interprofessional Education and Collaboration Network and his affiliation with Interprofessional.Global.

Maria Elizabeth M Grageda

Maria Elizabeth M. Grageda PhD is an Assistant Professor of Health Professions Education at the University of the Philippines Manila. A physical therapist by profession, she continues to engage in teaching, research, and advocacy in physical therapy, health professions education, educational research and evaluation, and intellectual property.