Abstract

Objective: To measure the medical and nursing students’ attitude toward Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Interprofessional health care teamwork in Duy Tan University and examine the related factors.

Method: Across-sectional study survey was distributed to 146 senior medical and nursing students at Duy Tan University from December, 2020 to March, 2021. Attitudes towards Interprofessional Health Care Teams scale (0.84) and Attitudes towards Interprofessional Education (0.76) were used to measure primary outcomes. The higher total scores indicate the more positive attitudes.

Results: The mean scores range from 38 to 53 indicating positive attitudes toward IPE and 28 to 40 in regards to interprofessional health care teamwork. Nursing students were found to have significant higher mean scores than medical students in attitude towards IPE and attitude towards interprofessional health care teamwork as well (p < 0.01). Students aged above 25 years reported higher mean scores (p<0.05) on IPE, but there was no relationship between gender and prior experiences to students’ attitude toward IPE and Interprofessional health care teamwork.

Conclusion: Study results provided the first baseline to promote attitude toward IPE and interprofessional health care teamwork. The findings also showed that participants were having positive attitudes, however there were low scores on some items of the survey, it was helpful to identify gaps in the understanding of students, that will be valuable evidence for an institution to make decisions on curriculum design and provide IPE in education programs.