Promoting Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in Rural Communities: A Mixed Method Study

Background and Purpose: Interprofessional collaboration among providers is critical for behavioral health service delivery. Particularly for providers working in rural areas, collaboration is essential to maximize limited resources in an effort to improve client outcomes. Unfortunately, little is known about how best to prepare social workers to engage in interprofessional collaborative practice to advance behavioral health outcomes among populations in rural and other underserved areas. This study sought to address this gap and explored the following research questions: 1) Do students’ attitudes towards interprofessional care at one southeastern university improve after participating in an interprofessional behavioral health training program? 2) What did these students learn about interprofessional teamwork through their participation in the program?

Methods: This study utilized a mixed method study design. There were 30 social work students (2 BSW; 28 MSW) selected for the program through a competitive application process (70% female). In terms of race/ethnicity, 53.3% self-identified as White, 43.3% of students identified as African American/Black, and 3.3% identified as Hispanic/Latino. The students participated in a year-long integrative seminar focused on rural interprofessional behavioral health practice and had a concurrent field placement in a rural behavioral health setting. All participants were asked to complete a pre/post survey that assessed their interprofessional attitudes (the Interprofessional Attitudes Towards Health Care Team; Heinemann et al., 2002) on a 5-point Likert Scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 5=Strongly Agree). Two one-hour focus groups also were conducted and audio recorded with participants using a semi-structured interview guide (e.g., Tell me about your experiences with the scholars program). Quantitative data were descriptively analyzed and paired sample t-tests were conducted in SPSS. Qualitative data were analyzed in MaxQDA using provisional codes and then second-cycle axial coding to differentiate themes.

Results: Students’ attitudes towards interprofessional care significantly improved from 54.6 (SD 4.86) to 59.9 (SD 5.16) from the beginning to the end of the program; t(25)=-4.21, p=.000. Themes from students’ qualitative data included 1) gaining an understanding of what interprofessional teamwork and collaboration is, 2) being able to advocate for social work as a profession among other helping professionals on interprofessional collaborative teams, and 3) strengthened identity as a social worker and the contribution they could make to improve client outcomes on an interprofessional team.

Conclusions and Implications: Overall, despite the limitations of this mixed methods study, findings indicate that this interprofessional training program improved students’ attitudes towards interprofessional practice, as well as strengthened students’ identity and ability to advocate for social work as a critical part of interprofessional behavioral health care teams. Implications of this study for research, practice, and policy related to rural interprofessional behavioral health practice will be shared.