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ABSTRACT
Interprofessional education is recognized widely as an essential component to improving patient outcomes but little progress has been made toward understanding the impact of specific educational interventions on interprofessional competencies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a case study exercise aimed at improving students’ teamwork competencies. A pre and posttest design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of two approaches to an educational intervention. The treatment group combined nursing, physical therapy, and pharmacy students; the control group involved only nursing students. The Team Skills Scale (TSS) was used to measure interprofessional teamwork competencies and open-ended questions were used to elicit students’ views. Mean pretest scores were similar for both the treatment and control groups. Following the intervention, posttest TSS scores were significantly higher for both the treatment group and control groups. However, posttest scores for the treatment group were significantly higher than the control group (mean score change 19.2 for treatment group versus 10.0 for control group), indicating that the face-to-face interaction between students of different professions had a greater impact. Themes that emerged from the open-ended questions support the quantitative findings, indicating that the intervention was useful for improving teamwork competencies.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my deep gratitude to the students who participated in this study, and to my dissertation committee for their support and guidance. I would also like to thank Richard E. Oliver, Ph.D., FASAHP for granting permission to use the Interdisciplinary Geriatric Assessment Case Study, and Kenneth Hepburn, PhD for granting permission to use the Team Skills Scale.
Declaration of Interest
The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of this article.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lee Ann Waltz
Lee Ann Waltz PhD, RN, CNE is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Waltz has been a Registered Nurse since 1986 in a wide variety of health care settings. Her background in nursing includes geriatrics, mental health, medical-surgical, and home health. Dr. Waltz has been teaching in the undergraduate nursing program at the University of the Incarnate Word since 2007. Her research interests include interprofessional education and collaboration, technology in education, and simulation.