• Nikoo Yamani, Marzieh Asgarimoqadam, Fariba Haghani, and Abbas Qari Alavijeh.
• Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
• Adv Biomed Res. 2014 Jan 1;3:153.

BackgroundThe increase in life expectancy and changes in lifestyle have led to prevalence of non-communicable diseases including diabetes whose treatment and care requires effective teamwork. This study was conducted to examine the effect of inter-professional education on performance and diabetes care knowledge of health care teams.Materials And MethodsThis quasi-experimental study was performed as an inter-professional education on 6 healthcare teams (34 people) based on Kolb's Learning Cycle and consisted of a set of training activities to improve individual, group, and inter-professional capabilities of members of the health care team. The pre- and post-tests included Team Climate Inventory (TCI) and a knowledge assessment tool performed before the workshop and 3 months later.ResultsMean scores for knowledge of health care team before intervention and 3 months later were 7.06 ± 1.04 and 7.97 ± 0.97 out of 10, respectively, that showed a significant difference (P < 0.0001). Mean score of the pre-test and post-test for inter-professional performance comprised 47.03 ± 6.7 and 49.44 ± 5.54 out of 70, respectively, which did not show any significant difference. However, these mean scores had a significant difference for the domains of knowledge and exercising objectives of the teamwork (10.62 ± 1.37 and 11.41 ± 1.76 out of 15, respectively) (P = 0.013).ConclusionIt seems that inter-professional education can improve the quality of health care to some extent through influencing knowledge and collaborative performance of health care teams. It also can make the health-related messages provided to the covered population more consistent in addition to enhancing self-confidence of the personnel.

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