Dental and Nurse Practitioner Student Attitudes About Collaboration Before and After Interprofessional Clinical Experiences

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect that an interprofessional clinical experience (IPCE) had on dental and adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner (NP) students' attitudes towards health care collaboration. A survey study was conducted with dental and NP students before and after completing IPCE rotations in a dental clinic and a tertiary care setting in the 2016-17 academic year. All dental students (N=159) and all NP students enrolled in the adult-gerontology primary care program (N=37) participated in the IPCE. Students were asked to complete the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) survey anonymously prior to and immediately after the experience. All 37 NP students completed both pretest and posttest, for a 100% response rate on both. Among the dental students, 120 completed the pretest, for a 75% response rate, and 106 completed the posttest, for a 67% response rate. The results showed a significant increase in total RIPLS score for both the dental and NP students following the experience (p<0.001). Attitudes about teamwork and collaboration and about roles and responsibilities improved for both the dental and NP students (p<0.001) following the IPCE. There was a difference between dental students' and NP students' teamwork and collaboration subscale scores before IPCE (p=0.006), but it diminished after the intervention (p=0.09). These results suggest the IPCE succeeded in building positive attitudes about interprofessional collaboration between dental and NP students. Clinical rotations should be considered to enhance the scope of students' experiences with interprofessional patient care.