Interprofessional education programs for health profession students: a cross-sectional descriptive study in France in 2017

Context : Interprofessional collaborative health care practices lead to better quality of care and lower health care costs. These practices require the development of dedicated education programs in primary training. The objective of this work was to take stock of the existing interprofessional education programmes (IPE) in the 36 French medical schools in 2017 for health profession students. Material and method : This work was a cross-sectional descriptive study of IPE programs. Data were collected by email or phone from a referent in each medical school during the year 2017. Results : IPE programs for health students were offered by 15 of the 36 responding universities. Ten were less than five years old. Twelve training streams were concerned, but few programs combined more than two of them. Teaching objectives were to develop interprofessional collaborative practices, discover each other's profession, explore representations, promote complementarity and the role of each, and improve communication. The formats and tools were diverse. Discussion and perspectives : IPE has been developing in France for 5 to 10 years but is offered in less than half of the universities. These programmes aim to respond to the organisational evolution of the healthcare system in the epidemic context of chronic diseases. This work highlights the need to initiate, develop and evaluate IPE programmes in France.