Improvement of teamwork in health care through interprofessional education.

INTRODUCTION: Collaboration, within and between healthcare teams, facilitates effective healthcare. Internationally, the development of interprofessional education, as a means to facilitate more effective teamwork in health care, has been recognized for over forty years.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to evaluate students' attitudes toward the influence of interprofessional education on improvement of collaboration and teamwork.

METHODS: The research was conducted by interviewing students at the Medical Faculty in Novi Sad in the form of cross-sectional study. The study sample included students from two undergraduate programmes: School of Nursing (n=52) and Integrated Studies of Medicine (n=53). Students admitted to the research had to be exposed to clinical experience. The instrument used in this study was the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS).

RESULTS: As many as 93.3% of students indicated that basics of teamwork skills should be obtained prior to graduation, whereas 96.2% considered that interprofessional education would enable them to improve mutual trust and respect. The majority of interviewees indicated that patients would ultimately benefit if healthcare students worked together to solve patient problems. Multivariate procedures MANOVA p < 0.05 and discriminative analysis p < 0.05 of students' attitudes toward teamwork and collaboration showed significant differences between the students of medicine and nursing.

CONCLUSION: The students of the Integrated Studies of Medicine and School of Nursing had a positive attitude toward the influence of interprofessional education on the improvement of collaboration and teamwork.