Exploring differences in and factors influencing self-efficacy for competence in interprofessional collaborative practice among health professions students

ABSTRACT

The value of health care delivered via effective interprofessional teams has created an imperative for interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP). To inform IPE strategies, we investigated differences in perceived self-efficacy (SE) for competence in ICP among health professions students. The study data were collected between 2015 and 2019 from students from 13 different health professions programmes (N = 3,497) before an annual institutional interprofessional programme. Students completed the IPECC-SET-27, a validated instrument evaluating perceived SE for competence in ICP, and rated their 1) amount of previous contact with, and 2) perceived understanding of, the role of different health professions. Students in different health professions education programmes were compared using parametric statistics. Regression analyses explored factors influencing SE for competence in ICP. Findings revealed significant differences in perceived SE for competence in ICP between programmes (p < .05). Specifically, health information management/health informatics, dentistry, medicine, and nursing students expressed relatively higher SE, whereas physical therapy and occupational therapy students expressed relatively lower SE. Perceived understanding of the role of health professions (p < .01) and gender (p < .01) contributed significantly to predicting perceived SE for competence in ICP, while the amount of previous contact with other health professions did not (p = .42). The findings highlight the value of designing IPE with consideration of specific learner needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional collaboration
• interprofessional education
• interprofessional evaluation
• interprofessional practice
• self-efficacy

Disclosure statement

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

Data sharing

Given the single-site nature of our study and the risk of identifying participants, we are unable to share the final dataset.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. This work was also supported in part by the Research platform RIDHE at the Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University under Grant LED 2020/685.