Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Publication Date
3-20-2025
Journal
Nursing Reports
Abstract
Background: Health-related programs frequently integrate interprofessional education (IPE) into their training. The COVID-19 pandemic transitioned many IPE programs online, making it essential to assess student expectations and perceived learning outcomes across virtual simulations and in-person settings.
Methods: This qualitative study compared student expectations and self-reported outcomes across in-person and virtual case scenarios at a Texas health science center. Responses to open-ended questions from two data collection periods were analyzed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.
Results: Students from nursing, medicine, dentistry, public health, and informatics participated in each group. Three major themes emerged from this study: communication, teamwork, and role identification, with self-development and professionalism as major subthemes. For communication, students often described a desire for increased simulations to "practice with interprofessional communication". Teamwork was the second theme identified, with students discussing the significance of effective teamwork, such as, "It is a good practice to work together, listen to each other, and achieve a common goal of patients getting better". Additionally, students expressed a desire to better understand the roles of other healthcare professionals across different settings.
Conclusions: Realistic IPE simulations may help students build confidence in their team roles while understanding other health professions. To strengthen curriculum design, faculty should include student expectations and perceived outcomes from IPE activities. A limitation of this study is the reliance on self-reported data, which may introduce response bias and the potential variability in student experiences.
Keywords
interprofessional education, teamwork, simulation, qualitative, virtual simulation, nursing
DOI
10.3390/nursrep15030114
PMID
40137687
PMCID
PMC11944972
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
3-20-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Biomedical Informatics Commons, Data Science Commons, Medical Education Commons, Nursing Commons