An Interprofessional Education Activity for Dietetic, Pharmacy, and Speech-language Pathology Students.

Interprofessional, active learning has been associated with enhanced communication and improved clinical competency in health professions, but little is known about the use of this pedagogical technique as it applies to a collaboration among dietetics, pharmacy, and speech-language pathology students.
A yearly, online synchronous workshop was developed for students from these three professions. Here we report the results of the 2024 workshop. All students were provided with the same clinical case and individually completed case discussion questions pertaining to each profession’s therapeutic areas. During the workshop, students were divided into small groups consisting of representatives from each profession. The students discussed case study questions comparing assessment and intervention for the hypothetical patient. Then they shared treatment recommendations with the original larger group. Faculty facilitators provided input and teaching points. Students completed online anonymous pre- and post-surveys that asked about their knowledge of the three professions as well as six questions relating to the therapeutics of the case. This project was reviewed by UConn IRB and is not considered human subject research.
Of the 37 students who participated in 2024 (dietetics=10, pharmacy=12, SLP=15) 91.9% (n= 34) completed the pre-survey and 73% (n= 27) completed the post-survey. The proportions of students who expressed a strong or complete understanding of the role of dietitians, pharmacists, and SLPs play in patient care in the pre- and post-survey were: 50% and 96.2% for dietitians, 61.8% and 88.9% for pharmacists, and 58.8% and 96.3% for speech-language pathologists. The mean score for the therapeutic questions on the pre-survey and post-survey was 4 and 4.4, respectively. Comments from students on the free-text section of the post-survey revealed three main themes: students enjoyed learning from more about the other two professions, appreciated the therapeutic knowledge of these peers, and enjoyed the virtual, synchronous small group discussion. This interprofessional education activity contributed to improved knowledge and confidence in workshop participants
It is essential that educational institutions identify effective strategies that enable health-related profession students to prepare for interprofessional practice. To our knowledge, this workshop is the first report in the literature that describes an IPE pedagogy among dietetics, pharmacy, and speech-language pathology students.