Lessons Learned by Students in an Interprofessional Communication Module (2019-2023)
Poster Description:
Background:
To address the complex health needs of the population, interprofessional education (IPE) is necessary to help students develop competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice, including interprofessional communication. The University of Wisconsin Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education (UW CIPE) offers the annual Interprofessional Communication Competency Module (ICCM) as one of four modules. The ICCM is offered to first-year interprofessional students and includes four units: Unit 1 and Unit 3 are online and asynchronous and each 30 minutes in duration, and Unit 2 and Unit 4 are synchronous, virtual, and 75-minute in-person sessions. The aim is to describe the relevant aspects learned by students when participating in activities that develop interprofessional communication competencies.
Methodology:
This is a qualitative study based on student evaluations during the years 2019 - 2023. In total 1487 (out of 1713 students) representing the following UW-Madison programs: Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Public Health, and Social Work responded (88.0% response rate). The survey was conducted using a Qualtrics survey after Units 2 and 4 of the ICCM each year. This analysis focused on the survey question, "What topics or aspects of the session did you find most interesting or useful?". Content analysis was performed with the generation of a dendogram through Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) with the software Iramuteq. Associative strength between words and themes was determined using chi-square tests (χ2) with significance being defined as p< 0.0001.
Results:
Five themes based on text segments with statistical significance emerged: (1) Rant activity: listening, reflection and understanding of underlie values of people, with 28.2% of the valid terms; (2) Role play: interaction and teamwork with other students, with 25.5%; (3) Communication with empathy and confidence in teamwork, with 15.2%; (4) Assumption activity: biases in perceptions, with 13.4%; and, (5) Giving and receiving feedback activity, with 17.7% of the valid terms. As for the association, categories (1), (4) and (5) have the strongest association with each other, while categories (2) and (3) are closest.
Conclusion:
Students perceived listening, reflection, understanding of underlying values of people, interaction, teamwork, communication with empathy, confidence, and giving and receiving feedback as relevant aspects of interprofessional communication skills.
Reflections/lessons learned/implications:
The aspects learned by the students are essential to increase team function and can help faculty in the design of course’s outcomes that aim to develop communication skills.
