IPE aims to equip future healthcare professionals with the skills necessary for effective collaboration in multidisciplinary teams. This approach seeks to enhance mutual respect and understanding across the healthcare disciplines [2]. However, the effectiveness of such educational programs remains an issue under study, especially regarding the perceived competency levels in collaboration between pharmacy and dentistry students.
The implemented IPE involved collaboration between pharmacy and dentistry students through various educational methodologies. It was designed to include interactive group discussions, case-based simulation activities, and dental rounds at FUE Teaching Dental Hospital, allowing students to practice together in a clinical setting. As shown in Table 1, pre- and post-activity ICCAS scores revealed statistically significant improvements across all subscales (p < 0.05), indicating substantial improvement in students’ self-reported interprofessional competency skills. The effect sizes shown in Table 2 further support these findings, with moderate to large effects observed across nearly all competency domains, suggesting that the multi-modal approach adopted effectively promoted the development of essential inter-professional skills. However, no meaningful statistical comparison could be made between students’ responses in the different disciplines due to the unbalanced distribution of students.
The findings offer unique insights into IPE while validating previous research suggesting that implementing similar IPE activities can potentially increase collaborative abilities among pharmacy and dentistry learners.
Our study’s high baseline ICCAS scores may be attributed to the voluntary nature of the pilot activity. Students who chose to participate likely had a pre-existing interest in interprofessional collaboration and higher motivation to engage in IPE experiences. This self-selection may have resulted in a sample of participants who already possessed greater confidence in their interprofessional abilities prior to the intervention.
Our findings align with Williamson et al., who reported an IPE activity between pharmacy and dental hygiene students through case studies-based learning with standardized patient cases, virtual consultations, and self-reflective writing. Both studies found that despite high baseline levels of perceived competence, students demonstrated significantly improved ICCAS scores following the IPE activity. This finding suggests that even students who initially feel confident in their interprofessional abilities can benefit meaningfully from structured IPE experiences regardless of the delivery method [18].
Similarly, another report confirmed high baseline competency with significant improvement across self-reported domains. Despite cohort size imbalances between pharmacy and dentistry students in our study and the previous one, increased perceived interprofessional collaboration skills indicate successful implementation [19].
The significant improvements we observed across ICCAS subscales add to the conclusions reported in previous research by Pogge et al. regarding enhancing the understanding of dental pharmacotherapy. While the current study sought to assess the IPE participating group only on pre- and post-measures, their study included a non-participant control group showing similar positive outcomes in attitudes and knowledge. In this context, some of our qualitative feedback, such as “I never thought that the two professions would be so much related,” resonates with what they have called improvement in their understanding of disciplines [20].
The moderate to large effect sizes across all subscales for both dentistry and pharmacy students, shown in Table 2, likely reflect the effectiveness of our multi-modal approach. Combining role-play, simulation cases, clinical exposure, and scientific exchange in a team-based environment gave students diverse learning opportunities and learning styles that may have significantly enhanced their interprofessional competencies in different contexts. These findings support the uniqueness of the current study, unlike IPE experiences that typically used single or dual-modality approaches.
The most substantial improvements in the current study were seen in domains related to interprofessional communication and understanding of professional roles. Slightly smaller effect sizes were observed in conflict management (domain 18: “address team conflict in a respectful manner”) for both groups, particularly among dentistry students (r = 0.43). This reported detailed examination of domain-specific outcomes provides measurable evidence for how well IPE activities work. The smaller effect sizes observed in conflict management competencies highlight an opportunity for program enhancement. Future sessions could include more focused conflict resolution practice, including hands-on training in managing difficult conversations and defusing tense situations. Adding real examples of team conflicts and their solutions would give students practical strategies to use. These changes would help improve the weaker areas while maintaining the program’s overall effectiveness in other competency domains.
Our finding of smaller effect sizes in conflict management differs from the uniformly positive outcomes of the study by Theodorou et al. assessing early-stage, hands-on IPE in preparing pharmacy and dental students for collaborative practice. This difference might be attributed to our smaller sample size of dental students or variations in how the IPE activities addressed conflict management scenarios [21].
Our moderate-to-large effect sizes across subscales align with findings from Morelli et al., who analyzed an IPE activity involving 14 PharmD students in a Dental facility using Students’ Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education Revised (SPICE-R2). Although they used a different assessment tool, along with diary entries and audio recordings, their results similarly showed positive statistical differences in mean scores for roles, responsibilities, and patient outcomes. This consistency in effect sizes across different measurement approaches strengthens the evidence for IPE effectiveness in pharmacy-dentistry collaboration [22].
Student qualitative feedback such as “Actually doing these exercises in the dental practice together made the biggest change, this is something you cannot read from the book” reinforces our quantitative findings on competency improvement. This is consistent with Branch-Mays et al.‘s research on teamwork effectiveness in handling drug therapy problems. Our interprofessional competency-based measurements complement their documented improvement in clinical outcomes, suggesting that practical clinical experiences make meaningful interprofessional skill development [23].
Our satisfaction data showed 100% positive responses (42% highly satisfied, 58% satisfied), providing quantitative support for the acceptability of our IPE approach. This agrees with the high satisfaction rates reported in previous studies [19, 21], though exact percentages varied due to different rating scales and sample sizes.
A key constraint in comparing our results with previous studies is the variation in assessment tools and statistical reporting methods. ICCAS measures the self-reported competencies of interprofessional collaboration pre- and post-activity, whereas SPICE looks at student perceptions of physician-pharmacist collaboration. A revised version, SPICE-R, has been developed to include other professions [24]. Each tool has different strengths and is selected depending on the particular goals and context of the IPE activity under assessment. ICCAS is a fully comprehensive assessment, while SPICE and SPICE-R are offered to determine insight into students’ attitudes. While all studies demonstrated positive outcomes, utilizing different metrics and varying sample sizes makes direct effect size comparisons challenging. Future research would benefit from standardized assessment approaches and reporting of effect sizes across all domains.
Team-based learning (TBL) has been highly implemented in pharmaceutical education [25, 26]. Though the current study did not adopt the typical TBL model, using it in a multi-disciplinary healthcare education environment enriches the learner’s understanding of long-term care concepts in new ways. This also helps develop critical professional skills like communication and teamwork [14]. Incorporating several educational experiences involving not just multidisciplinary but multicultural experiences in pharmaceutical education and diverse exposures to different healthcare practices may enhance students’ skills and ensure highly competent healthcare professionals [27].
The implementation phase of this IPE initiative revealed several operational challenges that required careful consideration, as commonly reported in the existing literature [8]. Scheduling conflicts between the two programs and possibly impacting participation and continuity was a big hurdle. Finding common ground for collaborative learning between the curricula of pharmacy and dentistry presented some problems because of the intrinsic differences in structure and focus of their curricula. Assessment of students from different healthcare disciplines proved complex, where each field has unique competency requirements and evaluation criteria. While direct assessment of interprofessional performance would be valuable, developing standardized evaluation criteria that fairly capture contributions from both pharmacy and dental students presented significant challenges. This restriction was addressed using the validated ICCAS tool, which measures self-perceived interprofessional competencies.
Moreover, logistic barriers and difficulties were encountered during the IPE implementation. There was difficulty in finding faculty members experienced in both fields to lead the IPE activities. Additionally, coordinating resources such as physical space, equipment, and materials across two faculties was complicated. Furthermore, a balance between the depth of content in pharmaceutical and dental aspects within a broad collaborative focus; needed careful planning and execution. A study addressed the most common implementation barriers in their IPE experience through video-conferencing and assigned roles, with significant improvements in interprofessional collaboration skills using minimal faculty resources [19]. These approaches may help offer valuable insights for enhancing our future IPE implementations.
Nevertheless, the current IPE between students of pharmacy and dentistry represents one important step toward furthering interprofessional collaboration in health education and doubtless will be refined and extended in future events.
Study limitations, strengths, and future perspectives
There are several limitations in this study. Firstly, the sample size was quite small, consisting of students from just one institution, which may limit its generalizability. Furthermore, due to the short duration of the IPE activity, it may have lacked depth in collaborative skills development. A key limitation was the absence of instructor-based assessment of collaborative skills and competencies. While the ICCAS tool provided valuable insights into students’ self-perceived improvements, direct observation and assessments of interprofessional interactions by faculty members would have provided more objective evidence of skill development. Additional limitations include the unequal distribution of participants between disciplines (19 pharmacy vs. 7 dentistry students), which limits our ability to make meaningful statistical comparisons between groups. Furthermore, while qualitative feedback provided valuable context, our study was not designed as a formal mixed-methods study, which would have allowed for more systematic qualitative data collection and analysis.
Despite the small sample size, the reported pilot study limitation was compensated by a few advantages. The small cohort size proved beneficial for the pilot, as it allowed us to deliver a comprehensive educational experience because the number of students per facilitator was manageable, and student activities in the hospital were also facilitated. While the self-selected nature of participation and relatively small sample size should be considered when interpreting the results, the 100% response rate to pre- and post-activity surveys provides reliable data for this initial pilot implementation, eliminating any potential response bias within our participant group and enhancing internal validation. Furthermore, this arrangement allowed for more focused implementation and detailed observation of the interprofessional learning experience. A notable strength of our IPE initiative was its uncommon multi-modal approach combining didactic, simulation, and clinical experiences specifically for pharmacy and dental students. This approach across different learning environments likely enhanced student engagement and contributed to the positive outcomes observed.
For future research, it is suggested that a wider range of healthcare students from various disciplines and institutions be included in the participant pool. Future studies can utilize larger samples with more varied interprofessional activities to examine their in-depth effects. Additionally, longitudinal studies should be carried out to investigate the long-term impact of IPE on professional practice. Moreover, applying qualitative approaches in addition to summative evaluation may offer a deeper understanding of particular dimensions of teamwork that best support learning, and consideration of a mixed methods design to provide deeper insights into the mechanisms underlying competency improvements observed through quantitative measures. Future implementations could benefit from incorporating structured instructor evaluations alongside self-reported measures and formal facilitator training, and calibration protocols.
Henceforth, it would be appropriate to incorporate more IPE activities into the curriculum so that the continual development and application of collective competencies can take place among prospective health workers. Moreover, future IPE sessions should be designed to focus on the weaker areas identified in this pilot, particularly conflict management skills.
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