Original ArticleThe Nebraska interprofessional education attitudes scale: A new instrument for assessing the attitudes of health professions students
Section snippets
Background/rationale
The U.S. health care system ranks near the bottom among developed countries on nearly every health care parameter.1, 2 Interprofessional collaboration and teamwork have been advocated as an essential remedy to improve the quality of patient care, lower costs, decrease length of stay and reduce medical errors.3 However, preparation of future health care professionals with new ways of relating to one another and new skills requires interprofessional learning approaches.2 Interprofessional
Instrument development
During the spring and summer of 2011, a literature review of existing instruments for interprofessional attitudes among health professions students was conducted. Concurrently, the UNMC IPE-CC adopted IPE competencies to refine the interprofessional curriculum objectives. The adopted competencies were based on the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice.14
An interprofessional group of health care educators at UNMC selected the sub-set of IPEC Competencies14 which were
Results
In 2012, 370 of the 472 students who participated in the IPE event completed the NIPEAS (79% response rate). 280 faculty members representing all colleges on campus completed the survey (52.8% from the College of Medicine) in the Spring 2013. In 2015, 353 students completed the NIPEAS (69% response rate) (Table 3). NIPEAS items were completed using a 5-point Likert scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Descriptive statistics for NIPEAS items are displayed in Table 4.
Principal components
Discussion
The publication of IPEC Competencies in 201114 made it possible for the first time to create an attitude measurement instrument for IPE that derived construct validity from a comprehensive, widely-accepted conceptual framework. This fact, in addition to reported deficiencies in previous IPE measurement instruments, led us to develop the NIPEAS as an instrument that was appropriate for pre-service learners which would measure attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration. Our objective was to
Conclusion
Validity evidence collected for the NIPEAS indicates this instrument is useful for measuring attitudes of matriculating students as well as practicing health care professionals. The construct validity for NIPEAS items was derived from IPEC competencies and the internal reliability was adequate. Additionally, internal structure validity evidence also support use of NIPEAS to measure attitudes of health sciences professionals.
References (30)
Learning to Improve Complex Systems of Care. Collaborative Education to Ensure Patient Safety
(2000)Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century
(2001)- et al.
Interprofessional collaboration: effects of practice-based interventions on professional practice and healthcare outcomes (review)
Cochrane Collab
(2009) Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice
(2010)- et al.
Making space: integrating meaningful interprofessional experiences into an existing curriculum
J Interprofessional Care
(2013) - et al.
Evaluation of evidence for interprofessional education
Am J Pharm Educ
(2006) - et al.
Program Evaluation for Interprofessional Initiatives: Evaluation Instruments/methods of the 20 IECPCP Projects
(2009) - et al.
Measures of interprofessional education and collaboration
J Interprofessional Care
(2010) - et al.
The evaluation of learner outcomes in interprofessional continuing education: a literature review and an analysis of survey instruments
Med Teach
(2011) - et al.
A comparison of two scales for assessing health professional students' attitude toward interprofessional learning
Med Educ Online
(2013)
The readiness for interprofessional learning scale: a possible more stable sub-scale model for the original version of RIPLS
J Interprofessional Care
The test-retest reliability of a revised version of the readiness for interprofessional learning scale (RIPLS)
J Interprofessional Care
The interdisciplinary education perception scale (IEPS): an alternative remodelled sub-scale structure and its reliability
J Interprofessional Care
Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Report of an Expert Panel
Interprofessionality as the field of interprofessional practice and interprofessional education: an emerging concept
J Interprof Care
Cited by (8)
Creating opportunities for telehealth education, assessment, and care through Hotspotting (CO-TEACH): An interprofessional telehealth delivery curriculum and guide
2023, Journal of Interprofessional Education and PracticeWhat participants learn, with, from and about each other during inter-professional education encounters: A qualitative analysis
2020, Nurse Education TodayCitation Excerpt :With the expansion of IPE, it's important to seek an understanding of what students learn from these types of educational interventions. IPE studies have primarily focused on exploring the impacts of an IPE activity or course on knowledge gained (Evans et al., 2012; Hunter et al., 2015), faculty attitudinal shifts about interprofessional education (Beck Dallaghan et al., 2016) and changes in self-reported confidence and competence specific to medical content following an interprofessional learning activity (Herring et al., 2013). Several studies have noted improvements in self- reported student attitudes and readiness to participate in interprofessional learning following an IPE educational activity through the use of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) (Posey et al., 2018; Rossler and Kimble, 2016).
Attitudes toward interprofessional education improve over time
2018, Journal of Interprofessional Education and PracticeCitation Excerpt :The RIPLS was intended for determining readiness for interprofessional education, rather than for repeated longitudinal analysis of attitudes. The ability to measure attitudes over time was one of the reasons the NIPEAS was developed.16 Perhaps use of an instrument meant for longitudinal assessment of attitudes might have resulted in different findings in previous research.
Creation of an Online Interprofessional Education Module for Executive Public Health Students
2022, Pedagogy in Health PromotionPreliminary testing of psychometric properties of the ‘student perceptions of veterinary interprofessional education and work scale’ (SP-VIEWS)
2022, Journal of Interprofessional CareConceptualizing collaboration in nursing
2018, Nursing Forum