Interprofessional education in problem-based learning: A frontier form of PBL in medical education

Ming Chu; Lan Xu; Yuan Liu; Huihui Ye; Yan Zhang; Yintong Xue; Yan Li; Xiang Gao; Jie Hao; Lijun Wang; Qi Guo; Yuedan Wang

doi:10.4103/jehp.jehp_62_23

Interprofessional education in problem-based learning: A frontier form of PBL in medical education

J Educ Health Promot. 2023 Oct 31:12:376. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_62_23. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ming Chu¹, Lan Xu¹, Yuan Liu¹, Huihui Ye², Yan Zhang³, Yintong Xue¹, Yan Li¹, Xiang Gao¹, Jie Hao¹, Lijun Wang¹, Qi Guo⁴, Yuedan Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, NHC Key Laboratory of Medical Immunology (Peking University), Beijing, China.
² Department of Immunology, Hunan Polytechnic of Environment and Biology, Hengyang, China.
³ Teaching Office, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Department of Immunology, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
⁴ Student Office, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) aims to educate healthcare students to improve collaboration and the quality of care. The delivery of IPE through a problem-based learning (PBL) setting appears to hold good validity. However, there are few studies that show the value of combining these two teaching modes.

Materials and methods: The research was a longitudinal intervention study. A total of 360 students were randomly divided into three interprofessional PBL (IPBL) groups that mixed nursing, pharmacy, and clinical medical students and three uniprofessional PBL (UPBL) groups that consisted of a single profession. An improved Attitude and Learning Ability Questionnaire (ALAQ) was used to measure the improvement in attitudes toward interprofessional cooperation and learning outcomes. The tutorial session and final examination grades were compared between IPBL and UPBL by Chi-square tests and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests. Cronbach's α analysis was calculated to assess the validity and reliability. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.887, demonstrating high levels of reliability (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.842 0.916).

Results: According to Chi-square tests and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel tests, we observed the student's positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and the student's role awareness in the IPBL students was increased compared with UPBL students. In addition, a great majority of IPBL students felt that they had improved their self-learning ability and maintained a high enthusiasm for learning during the course.

Conclusion: Our study found that the IPBL teaching model was more effective than the UPBL teaching model in healthcare student's positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and learning outcomes.

Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration; interprofessional education; interprofessional problem-based learning (IPBL); problem-based learning; uniprofessional problem-based learning (UPBL).