Title
Interprofessional Shared Decision-Making in Palliative Care for Undergraduate Students: Exploring Changes in Perceptions and Performance after Training.
Summary
Introduction
Interprofessional collaboration and shared decision making (SDM) are essential components of effective healthcare delivery, particularly in the context of palliative care. The ability of healthcare professionals to work together as a team and engage in SDM significantly impacts patient outcomes and quality of care. Therefore, it is crucial to explore educational interventions that enhance students' perception of their practices and improve their performance in interprofessional shared decision making (IP-SDM).
Methods
A pre-post study design was conducted among a cohort of twenty-eight undergraduate medical, nursing, and allied medical sciences students who participated in a three-day workshop at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) in Jeddah. At individual level, participants’ perceptions of their professional practices were evaluated using the Assessment of Interprofessional Team Collaboration Scale (AITCS) and post workshop evaluation. While at team level, team performance was assessed by evaluators through a Team Objective Structured Clinical Examination (TOSCE). Paired sample t-tests were used to compare pre-and post-workshop scores.
ResultsThe findings revealed a significant increase in total mean score at individual level of students’ perception about their practice at the post-workshop assessment (p=0.001). The workshop rating was almost ‘excellent’ according to the participants’ evaluation. In regard to team performance, the post TOSCE total mean score was also significantly higher than the pre-TOSCE score (p=0.008). These results demonstrate positive changes in students’ perceptions about their practice and their performance shortly after training in IP-SDM in a palliative care setting. Further studies are needed to assess long-term retention of the students’ perceptions and skills acquired related to SDM in the context of interprofessional collaboration in palliative care.
