Learning Experiences and Didactic Needs of German Healthcare Professions: A Focus Group Study for the Design of Personalized Interprofessional Further Education in Dementia Healthcare

Abstract

Considering the multifaceted nature of neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and the necessity for interprofessional knowledge, this research extends its scope to encompass professionals with diverse levels of training and experience in dementia care. A need analysis for the project “My INdividual Digital EDucation.RUHR” (MINDED.RUHR) is conducted to develop an automatized recommender system for individual learning content using AI. In this sub-study, the aim was to reveal didactic specialties, knowledge gaps, and structural challenges of further education in dementia care of different health professions and to derive learning preference personae. Eight focus group interviews among nine health professions and up to six participants (N = 34) each took place to survey distinct didactic experiences and learning needs. The results reflect various learning preferences, with a propensity to multimedia, practical, and interactive tasks. Health professions are used to digital education but show aversions against synchronous e-learning formats. The derived learning preference personae constitute profound blueprints for a user-centered digital education design process, aiming to establish personalized and representative further education in dementia care applicable to various individual preferences and structural workplace challenges of healthcare professions.