Development of client-centredness: Perceptions of interprofessional health care students

Health care professionals who provide high-quality care engage in interprofessional collaborative practice. Engaging collaboratively requires that educators ensure health care students have well-developed client-centred knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes. Limited research exists to help educators understand how to support health care students' client-centred development.

This study aimed to use storytelling and reflection to advance understanding of client-centredness development from the perspective of prelicensure health care students.

In this interpretive description study, 6 students from various health disciplines engaged in 3 focus group sessions over 5 months to discuss client-centred experiences. Digital stories were introduced to stimulate discussion. Focus group data were inductively analysed using thematic analysis.

Four themes related to client-centred development emerged: 1) building on existing professional knowledge; 2) internalizing client-centredness as an evolving process; 3) sharing stories; and 4) reflecting: a critical process.

Consistent with the limited evidence, employing storytelling and reflection in an interprofessional education setting enabled students to explore the concept of client-centredness in a way that enriched the discussion and their perceptions.

Health care students benefit from storytelling and open discussion opportunities to learn with, from, and about each other in an interprofessional education context as they internalize client-centredness and move beyond their professional education programs' knowledge and skill-based foundations.