Paper: Measuring the Effects of Interdisciplinary Team Training with Multi-Site Medical and Nursing Students (19th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice)

Thursday, 10 July 2008: 8:50 AM

Gwen Sherwood, RN, PhD, FAAN , School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Karen Frush, RN, MD , Department of Pediatrics, Duke University Health System, Durham, NC

David Hollar, PhD , Medical School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

GSK Interdisciplinary Team Training Team, Mixed , Nursing and Medicine Schools, Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel HIll, Chapel HIll, NC

Learning Objective 1: Describe four pedagogies for interdisciplinary team training that utilize high and low fidelity simulation, various technologies, and didactic lecture.

Learning Objective 2: Examine ways to utilize TeamSTEPPS as an effective educational design for interdisciplinary teamwork globally.

Purpose: Professional relationships significantly impact health care quality and safety. Globally there are recommendations for interdisciplinary education to improve teamwork. The purpose is to report outcomes of interdisciplinary team training on knowledge and attitudes of medical and nursing students in two universities.

Method: 235 4th year medical students and 203 senior nursing students (N=438) completed the validated 36-item Collaborative Healthcare Interdisciplinary Relationship Planning (CHIRP) scale and a 10 item Teamwork Knowledge scale pre- and post educational intervention based on TeamSTEPPS (AHRQ, 2007) to measure knowledge and attitudes on teamwork. Following a didactic lecture, students were randomly assigned in four comparison cohorts to apply learning using the same case scenario (a) High Fidelity Human Patient Simulation (n = 80, equally divided by discipline); (b) Role-Play (n = 80, equally divided by discipline); (c) Audience Response System (n = 140); and (d) Traditional Didactic Lecture only (n = 139). Data analysis used Generalized Linear Model (GLM) Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with SPSS, Version 15.0 to compare changes in knowledge and attitudes across cohorts.

Results: CHIRP demonstrated strong validity (internal consistencies .824 and .859 pre- post, respectively) with an eight subscale factor structure explaining 54.5% of variance in student scores. Attitudes improved significantly across all four cohorts pre-to-post-test (F1,370 = 48.7, p = .000) with no significant differences between cohorts (F3,370 = .325, p = .808). Knowledge increased significantly across cohorts there were no significant differences by cohort pedagogy. There were no significant differences by group size, gender, school, or profession.

Implications: Cross disciplinary team training can significantly improve medical and nursing student knowledge and attitudes but further investigation is needed to determine most effective pedagogy, impact of educational technology, and cultural differences in a global context. Single educational intervention late in educational experiences may limit sustained changes.

Funded: GSK Foundation

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