Author(s)

Lucyellen Dahlgren¹, Debra Gibbs², Suzanne Greenwalt³, Lindsay Hahn⁴, Mary S. Dietrich⁵

¹School of Nursing, Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA.
²School of Occupational Therapy, Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA.
³School of Physical Therapy, Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁴College of Pharmacy, Belmont University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁵School of Nursing, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.

To encourage a collaborative practice environment, educators should im-plement interprofessional education (IPE) into the healthcare curriculum. The objective of this study was to assess students’ attitudes about inter-professional education by determining whether a short interprofessional program impacts their attitudes toward the roles and responsibilities of other healthcare professionals. Graduate students in nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy participated in a two-hour ori-entation program. Students completed a validated pretest and posttest. Significant changes from pretest to posttest were found (p < 0.001), except for one question which addressed the need to acquire more skills than others (p = 0.46). This study suggested that a short program can have a positive impact on student attitudes about IPE.

Attitudes, Interprofessional Education, Roles, Interprofessional Learning

Dahlgren, L. , Gibbs, D. , Greenwalt, S. , Hahn, L. and Dietrich, M. (2018) Getting it Right from the Start: An Interprofessional Orientation Experience for Graduate Health Sciences Students, Evaluating Attitudes toward Role. Open Access Library Journal, 5, 1-15. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1104460.