Changes in attitudes toward interprofessional health care teams and education in the first- and third-year undergraduate students

Great article written by: Tomoko Hayashi, Hiromitsu Shinozaki, Takatoshi Makino, Hatsue Ogawara, Yasuyoshi Asakawa, Kiyotaka Iwasaki, Tamiko Matsuda, Yumiko Abe, Fusae Tozato, Misako Koizumi, Takako Yasukawa, Bumsuk Lee, Kunihiko Hayashi, and Hideomi Watanabe. (Gunma University, Japan)


The interprofessional education (IPE) program at Gunma University, Maebashi, Japan, implements a lecture style for the first-year students and a training style for the third-year students. Changes in the scores of modified Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale (ATHCTS) and those of modified Readiness of health care students for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) at the beginning and the end of the term were evaluated in the 2008 academic year. Two hundred and eighty-five respondents of a possible 364 completed the survey. In both the scales, the overall mean scores declined significantly after the lecture-style learning in the first-year students, while the scores improved significantly after the training-style learning in the third-year students. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the modified ATHCTS was composed of three subscales, and the modified RIPLS two subscales. Analyses using regression factor scores revealed that the scores of “quality of care delivery” subscale in the modified ATHCTS and those of “expertise” subscale in the modified RIPLS declined significantly in the first-year students. Consequently, IPE programs may be introduced early in the undergraduate curriculum to prevent stereotyped perceptions for IPE, and comprehensive IPE curricula may result in profound changes in attitudes among participating students.
For more information, please read the Journal of Interprofessional Care (Early Online)

Welcome 2012!

Looking back, 2011 has been another successful year for Journal of Interprofessional Care (JIC). This success is expressed in a number of different ways. The editorial office has continued to receive an increasing number of submissions over the past 12 months. Last year, the editorial team processed over 250 articles, editorials, commentaries, reports and reviews. The quality of the submissions has continued to increase, indicating that the academic work of our colleagues in the interprofessional field strives forward. For example, we have seen an expansion of methodological papers that outline innovative approaches by which we can build more robust empirical work. Also, our current call for papers on theoretical perspectives (due to be published later this year) has yielded nearly 20 potential contributions, with a range of stimulating ideas for using social science theories to illuminate and better understand the interprofessional domain.

Importantly, in 2011, JIC was awarded its first impact factor (0.793) from Thomson Reuters. Securing an impact factor provides an indication of the value of a journal in its academic domain, and is therefore a cause for celebration among editorial team and board members, authors, peer reviewers and our publisher – Informa. However, as the first JIC editorial of 2012 points out, while it is important to recognize the opportunities an impact factor offers an academic journal (e.g. increased attraction for authors), one also needs to understand the limitations of the methods used to calculate an impact factor (Reeves, Kenaszcuk, Sawatzky-Girling & Goldman 2012).

In 2011, we have also strengthened our editorial team by a number of new appointments whose talents will further enhance the quality of our editorial work. I am delighted to announce that we have four new associate editors – Julia Coyle (University of New South Wales, Australia), Craig Kuziemsky (University of Ottawa, Canada), Angus McFadyen (AKM-STATS, Glasgow, UK), Flemming Jakobsen (Regional Hospital Holstebro, Denmark); a new co-editor for the short reports section – Tina Martimianakis (University of Toronto, Canada) and a new co-editor of our reviews section – Tyler Law (McMaster University, Canada).

Encouragingly, the Journal's social media sites continue to have a widening presence on the Internet. For example, the JIC Twitter account now has over 400 followers, while the JIC Facebook account has nearly 100 members. Earlier this year, the Journal launched its own YouTube Channel and Blog, and posted a number of podcasts on its main website. Collectively, these different forms of social media provide additional insights and information which aim to complement the Journal's conceptual, empirical and theoretical papers and reports, editorials, commentaries and reviews.

Personally, this year has been one of change. After 6 years at the University of Toronto, I moved to the University of California, San Francisco, to begin an exciting new role as the Founding Director for the Center for Innovation in Interprofessional Healthcare Education. This new post allows me to extend my increasing interest in leading interprofessional initiatives while continuing my research and editorial work. As a result of this move, the editorial office is now more virtual in nature, spanning both San Francisco and Toronto, as Joanne Goldman continues her invaluable work as JIC Managing Editor based in Toronto. This means that the editorial office work is now undertaken by use of various information technologies, similar to many journals that have online submission systems like JIC.

Looking into 2012, our aim is to continue to build upon these successes: strengthen the quality of JIC papers through robust editorial work, work to increase our impact factor and extend our Internet presence by continued use of different social media applications. Once again, I would like to thank all the members of our editorial team and editorial board, whose hard work and contributions ensure the continued success of Journal of Interprofessional Care.

Thank you,Scott Reeves (Editor-in-Chief)


For more information, please see the Journal of Interprofessional Care: http://informahealthcare.com/journal/jic

A cross-institutional examination of readiness for interprofessional learning

Happy New Year from everyone at the Journal of Interprofessional Care!

Great article exploring a cross-institutional examination of readiness for interprofessional learning. 
Written by: Sharla King (Health Sciences Education and Research Commons, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada), Elaine Greidanus (Health Sciences Education and Research Commons, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada), Rochelle Major (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada), Tatiana Loverso (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada), Alan Knowles (Department of Social Work, MacEwan University, Edmonton, 

Alberta

, Canada), Mike Carbonaro (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada), Louise Bahry (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, 

Edmonton, AB

, Canada).

This paper examines the readiness for and attitudes toward interprofessional (IP) education in students across four diverse educational institutions with different educational mandates. The four educational institutions (research-intensive university, baccalaureate, polytechnical institute and community college) partnered to develop, deliver and evaluate IP modules in simulation learning environments. As one of the first steps in planning, the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale was delivered to 1530 students from across the institutions. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to expand upon previous work to examine psychometric properties of the instrument. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the institutions; however, a closer examination of the means demonstrated little variability. In an environment where collaboration and development of learning experiences across educational institutions is an expectation of the provincial government, an understanding of differences among a cohort of students is critical. This study reveals nonmeaningful significant differences, indicating different institutional educational mandates are unlikely to be an obstacle in the development of cross-institutional IP curricula.

For more information, please read the Journal of Interprofessional Care, Early Online: http://informahealthcare.com/toc/jic/0/0

Development of a scale to measure health professions students' self-efficacy beliefs in interprofessional learning

Happy Holidays from the Journal of Interprofessional Care!

Great article about the development of a scale to measure health professions students' self-efficacy beliefs in interprofessional learning. 

By Karen Mann (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Judith McFetridge-Durdle (Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada), Lynn Breau (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Joanne Clovis (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Ruth Martin-Misener (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Tanya Matheson (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Hope Beanlands (University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia), Maria Sarria (Follett Software, Simpsonville, SC, USA)

A need exists for measures to evaluate the impact of interprofessional education (IPE) interventions. We undertook development and evaluation of a scale to measure self-efficacy perceptions of pre-licensure students in medicine, dentistry and health professions. The scale was developed in the context of a project entitled, “Seamless Care: An Experiential Model of Interprofessional Education for Collaborative Patient-Centered Practice”. As self-efficacy perceptions are associated with the likelihood of taking on certain tasks, the difficulty of those tasks, and perseverance in the face of barriers, we reasoned that understanding changes in students' perceptions and their relation to other outcomes was important. A 16-item scale was developed from a conceptual analysis of relevant tasks and the existing literature. Content validity was assessed by six Canadian IPE experts. Pre-licensure students (n = 209) participated in a pilot test of the instrument. Content validity was rated highly by the six judges; internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach's α = 96) and subscales 1 (α = .94) and 2 (α = .93) were high. Principal components analysis resulted in identification of two factors, each accounting for 34% of the variance: interprofessional interaction, and interprofessional team evaluation and feedback. We conclude that this scale can be useful in evaluating IPE interventions.



For more information, read Journal of Interprofessional Care, 

Early Online - December 14, 2011: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2011.640759

Frequency of nurse–physician collaborative behaviours in an acute care hospital

Interesting article written by: Dawn Marie Nair, (Department of Nursing, Fairfield University, 

Fairfield, CT

, USA); Joyce J. Fitzpatrick (Department of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland, OH

, USA); Rita McNulty (Department of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland, OH

, USA); Elizabeth R. Click (Department of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland, OH

, USA); and Margaret M. Glembocki (Department of Nursing, Oakland University, 

Rochester, MI

, USA).

A new culture bolstering collaborative behavior among nurses and physicians is needed to merge the unique strengths of both professions into opportunities to improve patient outcomes. To meet this challenge it is fundamental to comprehend the current uses of collaborative behaviours among nurses and physicians. The purpose of this descriptive study was to delineate frequently used from infrequently used collaborative behaviours of nurses and physicians in order to generate data to support specific interventions for improving collaborative behavior. The setting was an acute care hospital, and participants included 114 registered nurses and 33 physicians with active privileges. The Nurse–Physician Collaboration Scale was used to measure the frequency of use of nurse–physician collaborative behaviors self-reported by nurses and physicians. The background variables of gender, age, education, ethnicity, years of experience, years practiced at the current acute care hospital, practice setting and professional certification were accessed. In addition to analyzing the frequency of collaborative behaviors, this study compares levels of collaborative behavior reported by nurses and physicians.
For more information, please read the Journal of Interprofessional Care, Early Online: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13561820.2011.637647

The role of interagency collaboration in “joined-up” case management

Interesting article about interagency collaboration, written by Marty Grace (School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Victoria University, 

Melbourne

, Australia), Louise Coventry, (School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Victoria University, 

Melbourne

, Australia),  and Deb Batterham (Hanover Welfare Services, Research and Policy, 

Fitzroy, Melbourne

, Australia).

This article reports on research into the relationships that a group of case managers formed with local service providers in order to deliver integrated, “joined-up” services to young people experiencing homelessness and unemployment in the state of Victoria, Australia. Using a two-part customized survey tool, we explored the number and nature of relationships with other agencies. Two focus group discussions contributed to the interpretation of the survey findings. We found that these case managers maintained many relationships, mostly with housing and employment service providers. These relationships were predominantly cooperative in nature, and most could not easily be characterized as collaborative. Our research supports the view that, in an increasingly complex social service system, other forms of cooperation are usually appropriate for achieving the types of interorganizational relationships that are important to assist shared clients. Furthermore, this research supports the notion of a relationship continuum, finding that ratings of relationship elements were positively correlated with relationship type. This research indicates the importance of considering the pragmatic, contextual and situated practices that comprise interagency relationships, their fitness for purpose and the importance of cooperation for effective service provision.

For more information, please read the Journal of Interprofessional Care, December 6, 2011, Early Online.

Circles of care: A novel tool for interprofessional health education

Very interesting early online article, written by: Sarit Khimdas, Akshay Shetty, Chandheeb Rajakumar, Colin Meyer-Macaulay, Cal Shapiro, Rachit Sheshgiri and Neeraj Patel

(University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada).

The health care landscape has seen a dramatic change over the last 15 years, with an emphasis on an inter- professional model of health care delivery in a patient-centered context (Thistlethwaite, Moran, & World Health Organization Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice, 2010). Today’s health professionals are dealing with an increasing number of older and chronically ill patients that has forced us to reevaluate how we deliver care. The interplay between biopsychosocial aspects of chronic health illnesses has led to a more collaborative working relationship between different allied health care professionals, resulting in better patient care.

It has been shown, however, that on entering higher education, students become professionally socialized, poss- ibly creating cognitive and social boundaries between professions that hinder sharing of knowledge (Jacobsen, Fink, Marcussen, Larsen, & Hansen, 2009). Therefore, it is all the more important that the role of interprofessional education takes on an active role within health education curriculum.

Interprofessional education on clinical training wards with exposure to trainees from other health care fields improved awareness of each others disciplinary roles, increased knowledge base of their own roles and fostered greater cooperation between groups, while creating positive attitudes toward other professions (Wijma, 1999). Our group has sought to present an alternative to interprofessional training sessions. Working with the Inter Professional Health Education and Research Department at the University of Western Ontario, we developed an interactive learning board game meant to be played by professionals and students from different allied health care fields in sessions ranging from 1 to 2 hours, titled Circles of Care.

For more information, please read: The Journal of Interprofessional Care, Early Online, December 6, 2011.