As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined: a survey of student attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration supported with the curricula analysis

ABSTRACT

Pharmaceutical care was legally introduced as an interprofessional service in Poland in 2009. However, a collaboration between physicians and pharmacists remains incidental. Proper education at the undergraduate level is necessary to shape the attitudes of students toward establishing interprofessional relations. The aim of the study was to assess the perception of physician-pharmacist collaboration among final-year medical and pharmacy students through questionnaires with both closed-ended and open-ended questions. The study also includes an analysis of medicine and pharmacy curricula in terms of promoting interprofessional collaboration between the two fields. The statistical analysis of data obtained from 502 respondents revealed significant differences between the perceived areas for such collaboration. Moreover, the division of roles and responsibilities during the pharmacotherapy process between both professions seems to be unclear. Importantly, only 10.14% of the respondents evaluated these professional relations as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Also, 66.87% of the students emphasized the importance of educational interventions to improve interprofessional collaboration between pharmacists and physicians. Although 70% of medical and 87% of pharmacy students wish to establish such collaboration in the future, only 15% and 35%, respectively feel adequately prepared for the task. Understanding similarities and differences in this field appears to be the key to designing effective educational solutions for promoting interprofessional attitudes among healthcare undergraduates.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional collaboration
• pharmaceutical care
• pharmacy students
• medical students

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude to all students who consented to participate in the study.

Disclosure Statement

This work was supported by Poznan University of Medical Sciences (grants numbers 502-01-03314429-03439 and 502-14-04102108-09985). The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Poznan University of Medical Sciences [502-01-03314429-03439,502-14-04102108-09985].