Effect of Experiential Competency-Based Interprofessional Education on Pre-Professional Undergraduate Students: A...

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary faculty team-led competency-based interprofessional undergraduate course for health and human services pre-professional students. Today's complex health and social problems require inter-professional knowledge and skills. Most interprofessional education occurs in graduate-level healthcare programs. Students graduating from health and allied health professions at the undergraduate level are ill prepared to work on interprofessional teams. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the impact of an innovative experiential course on interprofessional competencies. Eleven undergraduate students in human services, public health, and nursing participated in the course. Students and faculty completed a modified Interprofessional Education Collaborative Competency Survey after each simulation and results were compared. At the end of the semester, each student also responded to open-ended prompts describing their reflections pertaining to team experiences. The results of this study indicate that an undergraduate course can increase students' interprofessional competencies, and that group dynamics influence how students view their skill levels. Consistent with other studies on this topic, students' self-ratings on the survey were mostly higher than those completed by faculty members. Educators need to process group dynamics (e.g., storming, norming) and individual styles of work regularly throughout the semester in order to maximize students' development of interprofessional competencies. Pre-professional students should be provided interprofessional learning opportunities to improve their competencies for addressing complex health and social challenges.