Sustained effects of interprofessional shared learning on student attitudes to communication and team working depend on shared learning opportunities on clinical placement as well as in the classroom

Background: Delivering high quality healthcare increasingly requires effective team working, and interprofessional shared learning (SL) is crucial to this. This study compares the attitudes, 1 year after experience of an undergraduate SL programme, of students who had participated in the programme with their peers who had not.Methods: 207 students were invited to complete a questionnaire to assess the impact of SL on attitudes to clinical competence and behaviour. Responses were received from 171 students (83%) who had either had no experience of SL, SL in lectures only, or SL in lectures and clinical placement.Results: Significantly different responses were found between the three groups for a number of the statements, and these were further developed in responses to the open-ended questions. Only group 3 had developed and sustained a less exclusive attitude and were better able to appreciate that SL can make an important contribution to learning communication skills and understanding patient problems.Conclusions: This raises important questions about the approach taken to undergraduate SL if it is to have a contributory effect to attitudes about professional identity, and a significant effect in improving the quality of care provided by the doctors and nurses of tomorrow.Practice points Interprofessional shared learning helps prepare healthcare students for effective team working, but debate continues as to how this can best be achieved and sustained.Only a combined classroom and clinical placement programme resulted in sustained benefits in students’ understanding of shared learning and its relevance to their future practice.This has important implications for the development of undergraduate shared learning for healthcare professionals.