Faculty members’ readiness for interprofessional education

Abstract

Introduction: Healthcare is a complex system that requires collaboration across health professions. However, a plethora of reports has identified poor communication and collaboration within healthcare teams which could lead to patient safety issues. Interprofessional education (IPE) is an educational strategy to promote communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals. Despite knowing the readiness among students, opinions among faculty members regarding the need for IPE at UPH (Universitas Pelita Harapan) have yet to be examined despite the important roles of both students and faculties in developing an IPE curriculum. This study aimed to investigate the readiness among medical and nursing faculty members in establishing an IPE curriculum at UPH. Methods: This study applied a quantitative study design using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) by Parsell and Bligh (1999) which was translated to Indonesian and tested for its validity and reliability. The translated RIPLS questionnaire was administered to a total of 60 participants which consisted of 30 nursing and 30 medical faculty members. Subsequently, both descriptive and Mann-Whitney statistical analyses were conducted. Results: Findings revealed a statistically significant difference between the IPE scores (RIPLS) of nursing faculties and medical faculties  (U = 652, z = 3.028; p = 0.012, r = 0.390). This demonstrates that the nursing faculty members (Median 4.30) indicated a higher level of readiness or more positive attitude towards IPE compared to the medical faculty members (Median 4.07). Conclusions: This study highlights that faculty members have a positive attitude or readiness toward IPE, with nursing faculties indicating higher levels of readiness than their counterparts in the medical faculty. Further exploration using a qualitative method is also important to understand the faculty members’ readiness for IPE as well as the commitments of faculty members and leadership on delivering IPE.