Teaching primary health care: an interdisciplinary approach

The growing importance of the development of primary health care services necessitates role development for the allied health professions, including nursing and radiography. In order to prepare the future professionals to take on the challenges brought about by these role developments, educational institutions had to include lectures on the principles involved in primary health care delivery in the undergraduate curricula of these educational programmes. This was done at the University of Malta as an educational experiment, and the students were asked to complete a questionnaire about their experiences of pursuing this module on an interdisciplinary basis. The most important finding was the fact that the majority of respondents indicated that they found the theoretical material applicable to professional practice. It also enabled them to work towards developing their own roles within a primary health care clinical setting. The researchers can therefore suggest that primary health care should be included in the curricula of the other health care professions.