Promoting interprofessional understandings through online learning: A qualitative examination

Lisa McKenna, Malcolm Boyle, Claire Palermo, Elizabeth Molloy, Brett Williams and Ted Brown

Nursing & Health Sciences, 2014, vol. 16, issue 3, 321-326

Abstract: Interprofessional education is increasingly a core component of health professional curricula. It has been suggested that interprofessional education can directly enhance patient care outcomes. However, literature has reported many difficulties in its successful implementation. This study investigated students' perceptions of participating in an online, Web‐based module to facilitate interprofessional education. Three focus groups, each with 13–15 students, from emergency health (paramedic), nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and nutrition and dietetics were conducted with students who participated in an online interprofessional education module at one Australian university. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze interview transcripts. Four themes emerged: professional understanding, patient‐centeredness, comparison with other interprofessional education activities, and overcoming geographical boundaries. Students were overwhelmingly positive about their learning experiences and the value of the module in assisting their understandings of the roles of other health professionals. Online approaches to interprofessional education have the potential to enhance learning and overcome geographical and logistical issues inherent in delivering face‐to‐face interprofessional education. Furthermore, our design approach allowed students to watch how other health professionals worked in a way that they were unable to achieve in clinical practice.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12105

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:nuhsci:v:16:y:2014:i:3:p:321-326

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Nursing & Health Sciences from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().