Interprofessional education on opioid use and pain identifies team-based learning needs

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Interprofessional Practice
• Pain Management

Background:

• Designed an interprofessional education (IPE) activity for pharmacy, medicine, nursing, social work, and addiction studies students.
• Focused on team-based collaboration for managing patients on chronic opioid therapy.
• Aimed to assess student responses and learning outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of an interprofessional education (IPE) activity on opioid knowledge and interprofessional collaboration among health professional students.
• To identify differences in baseline knowledge, knowledge gains, and attitudes towards collaboration across various healthcare professions.
• To inform program refinement for addressing unique professional needs in pain management education.

Main Methods:

• Students participated in a 2-hour in-person IPE activity involving an unfolding patient case with opioid therapy considerations.
• Utilized patient history, screening tools, morphine equivalent dose, and prescription monitoring reports in case analysis.
• Administered pre- and post-course surveys to assess opioid knowledge and interprofessional collaboration attitudes.

Main Results:

• Pharmacy students' baseline opioid knowledge varied, being similar to nursing, lower than medicine, and higher than social work students.
• Pharmacy students demonstrated greater knowledge gains compared to medical students.
• Nursing and social work students reported enhanced attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration more than medicine and pharmacy students.

Conclusions:

• Interprofessional education activities can effectively address training gaps in chronic pain and opioid use management.
• Varied baseline knowledge across professions necessitates tailored educational approaches.
• Assessing knowledge gains and collaborative attitudes helps refine IPE programs for diverse healthcare student needs.