Change in Self-reported Interprofessional Behaviors of Undergraduate Health Professions Students After Participating in Interprofessional Training

INTRODUCTION Interprofessional educational opportunities are becoming more common in training of undergraduate, prelicensure health profession students. Recent reviews note some effectiveness of these programs in collaborative practice skill and behavior improvement. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of an interprofessional, team-based, elder-home- visiting program on undergraduate health profession students’ selfreported interprofessional behaviors. METHODS A semester-long, interprofessional elder-home-visiting program was conducted for 79 upper-level undergraduate health professions students (nursing, public health, athletic training, speech-language pathology), along with medical and dental students. Only the undergraduate health professions student participants were surveyed to examine their self-reported pre/post program change in collaborative competency behaviors. RESULTS Statistically significant differences in all pre/post total and subscale mean scores were found. By health profession, only public health and nursing students reported significant collaborative competency behavior changes in all subscales. DISCUSSION This interprofessional program proved highly successful in improving participants’ perceived levels of collaborative competency behaviors. Structuring the program experience to require reliance on a broad spectrum of skills and knowledge can assist health professions students in understanding and demonstrating the core collaborative competencies. CONCLUSION Evidence to support interprofessional understanding and practice of collaborative competency behaviors, particularly for public health and nursing students, can be obtained through interprofessional educational experiences.