Interprofessional education through case conferences: Enhancing collaborative skills in psychiatric discharge...

To examine within-group pre-post changes associated with a structured interprofessional education (IPE) intervention among occupational therapy (OT), mental health social work (MHSW), and nursing (NS) students in Japan, with a focus on psychiatric discharge planning for long-term inpatients with schizophrenia.

We used a one-group pretest-posttest (quasi-experimental) design. Senior-year OT, MHSW, and NS students formed interprofessional teams to develop discharge support plans for a simulated long-term psychiatric inpatient. The Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS; n = 194) and the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS; n = 134) were administered immediately before and after the case conference. Linear mixed-effects models estimated time (pre, post), profession (OT, MHSW, and NS), and time × profession effects with a random intercept for participant. As sensitivity analyses, we conducted repeated-measures anova on complete cases and ancova adjusting for baseline scores.

RIPLS and IEPS scores increased significantly from pre to post across professions, indicating within-group improvements in interprofessional readiness and collaborative perceptions. On RIPLS, gains were largest among OT students (small time × profession effect), whereas on IEPS, the time × profession interaction was not significant, and profession differences attenuated after baseline adjustment in ANCOVA. Qualitative feedback suggested a clearer understanding of each profession's role in discharge planning.

This study provides preliminary evidence suggesting the potential value of a structured IPE program for enhancing interprofessional attitudes and competencies in the context of psychiatric discharge planning. Given the one-group pre-post design, causal inference is limited; controlled, multi-institutional, and longitudinal studies are needed to validate and extend these findings.