Journal of interprofessional care
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Promoting teamwork in health and social care requires an understanding of the interface between interprofessional practice (IPP) and interprofessional education (IPE). A study with two parts, one qualitative and one quantitative, examined this interface in Norway. The first used focus groups to assess IPP rewards, barriers, and facilitating factors among practitioners in clinical settings. ⋯ Results of Part 1 indicate that providers report many intrinsic rewards of IPP; however, the more extrinsic impacts of collaborative practice on patient care need to be emphasized to system managers. Results of Part 2 suggest strong general support by academic deans and directors for IPE, though addressing specific potential barriers to its implementation has become increasingly important. Overall, bridging the IPP-IPE gap requires educating leaders in both settings about the resources needed for teamwork, linking clinical and educational settings through continuing professional development, and generally advocating more effectively for both IPP and IPE.
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This study was designed to develop an instrument for measuring attitudes toward pharmacist-physician collaborative relationships for administration to practicing pharmacists and physicians, as well as to students in pharmacy and medical schools. Based on a review of literature, a preliminary version of an instrument was developed (30 items), and through a pilot study of face validity and content validity with 12 pharmacists and 10 physicians, 18 items were chosen for quantitative analyses. We asked 88 respondents (61 pharmacists, 27 physicians) to judge the relevance, clarity, and representativeness of each item to the concept of pharmacist-physician collaborative relationships. ⋯ No gender difference was observed; however, pharmacists scored higher than physicians on the total score of the instrument. The Cronbach's coefficient alpha was .81 for pharmacists, .92 for physicians, and .87 for the combined sample. Encouraged by these preliminary findings, we plan to undertake further research to examine the instrument's psychometric properties including criterion-related and predictive validities with larger and more representative samples of pharmacists, physicians, and students in pharmacy and medical schools.