Interprofessional Education: Research to Inform Social Work Practice

Background:  Integrated health care is increasing throughout the United States with the goals of improving the health care delivery system, including: (1) improving outcomes, (2) decreasing cost, and (3) enhancing the patient experience (Berwick et al., 2008; Lown, 2016).  One strategy is strengthening both the breadth and depth of collaboration among team members in health care.   As the health care system advances toward integrative care, there is an ongoing effort to improve patient care by building interprofessional cooperation and coordination.  As interprofessional teamwork expands, so must the education of students to understand the value of interprofessional practice. 

Methods:  This research examined social work students’ experiences with and attitudes toward interprofessional practice and collaborative teams.  A cross-sectional study was conducted with students in a large school of social work (N=125).  The study included questions on experiences in the field, training and education, collaboration on teams, perceptions of other professions, and overall attitudes toward interprofessional practice.  Data were screened for missing variables and outliers.  Linearity was then analyzed by a scatterplot. 

Results:  Descriptive data indicated that although 43.6% of students had experience in interprofessional practice, but only 13.7% of the students had training in interprofessional practice. Students’ collaboration on teams scores could range from 12-60, with a mean of 44.1 (SD=5.2). Overall attitudes toward interprofessional practice could range between 14-70 and scores among the students were generally positive (M=54.1,SD=6.2). 

A linear regression model indicated that the overall model of the five independent variables significantly predicted attitudes toward interprofessional practice, R²=.216, R² _adj = .169, F ( 5, 84)= 4.63, p<.01. However, a review of beta weights specifies that only collaboration on teams significantly contributed to the model. 

Implications:  The finding suggest that different approaches to training social work that have been use to strengthen social work students training in interprofessional practice in both the classroom and the field setting.  These educational efforts need to be amplified as we move forward in the profession to prepare students for interprofessional teamwork. As Crewer states (2018), “Coupling practice innovations with evidenced-based assessments provides social workers with valued leadership positions on interdisciplinary teams”.