Interprofessional education in problem-based learning: A frontier form of PBL in medical education

BACKGROUND: Interprofessional education (IPE) aims to educate healthcare students to improve collaboration and the quality of care. The delivery of IPE through a problem-based learning (PBL) setting appears to hold good validity. However, there are few studies that show the value of combining these two teaching modes.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research was a longitudinal intervention study. A total of 360 students were randomly divided into three interprofessional PBL (IPBL) groups that mixed nursing, pharmacy, and clinical medical students and three uniprofessional PBL (UPBL) groups that consisted of a single profession. An improved Attitude and Learning Ability Questionnaire (ALAQ) was used to measure the improvement in attitudes toward interprofessional cooperation and learning outcomes. The tutorial session and final examination grades were compared between IPBL and UPBL by Chi-square tests and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests. Cronbach's alpha analysis was calculated to assess the validity and reliability. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.887, demonstrating high levels of reliability (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.842 0.916).RESULTS: According to Chi-square tests and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests, we observed the student's positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and the student's role awareness in the IPBL students was increased compared with UPBL students. In addition, a great majority of IPBL students felt that they had improved their self-learning ability and maintained a high enthusiasm for learning during the course.CONCLUSION: Our study found that the IPBL teaching model was more effective than the UPBL teaching model in healthcare student's positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and learning outcomes.