gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Collaborative practice gains on importance when facing the health challenges of today. To adequately prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals, interprofessional education (IPE) is seen as a key element. The Swiss Health Alliance for Interprofessional Education (SHAPED, [https://www.shaped-ip.ch/]) has developed with its Interprofessional (IP) Pub Quiz a new IP learning activity to discuss a patient’s case. The aim of our contribution is to assess the pilot-implementation of the IP Pub Quiz at Bern University of Applied Sciences in fall 2023.

Method: Second year bachelor students from nursing, physiotherapy, nutrition & dietetics, and midwifery were divided into IP groups of 5-10 students. They took part in the 90-minute IP Pub Quiz in a lecture-setting. Questions were designed to not solely query profession-specific knowledge, but to hone IP clinical reasoning. The students were asked to solve multiple stages of a patient’s case within their groups by putting their individual strengths and knowledge to use – i.e. through IP teamwork and communication. The Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education – Revised (SPICE-R) instrument was administered in a pre-post design to quantify the effect of the IP Pub Quiz on students’ perception of IPE and collaborative practice.

Results: From 208 pre- and 122 post-questionnaires 107 pairs could be identified and included. Internal consistency was high with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89. The overall mean improved statistically significantly (Wilcoxon signed-rank test; z=4.227, p<0.001) from pre (3.894 points; SD±0.393) to post (4.021 points; SD±0.393). In the sub-analysis and after Bonferroni-correction two out of three factors of SPICE-R (roles/responsibilities and teamwork) showed a statistically significant increase from pre to post.

Discussion: Second year healthcare students showed a positive perception of IPE and collaborative practice. Through suitable IP learning activities (i.e. the IP Pub Quiz), this perception can be further improved. The observed increment in the factors roles/responsibilities as well as teamwork – two of the six widely accepted IP learning domains – should be seen as an asset of the IP Pub Quiz. While its focus was not on perceived patient outcome, it is nonetheless encouraging to see that students rate this factor the highest already at the outset of the IP workshop, indicating their understanding of the importance of IPE and collaborative practice for the successful treatment of patients. Most likely due to a ceiling effect, no further increase could be seen in this factor.

Limitations include the low response rate in the post-questionnaire (non-response bias) and the missing control-group (time effect).

Take home message: While these are only preliminary findings of a single-center pilot-study, the IP Pub Quiz could serve as a resource-effective alternative to small group IP case discussions, where often the number of facilitators and rooms can pose a challenge.