Health Care Professional Students' Perceptions Of Teamwork And Roles After An Interprofessional Critical Care Simulation

Background: Educational opportunities for health care professional students to learn collaborative communication and the roles and responsibilities of other disciplines are minimal unless faculty are intentional about facilitating this interdisciplinary learning.Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine how a simulation-enhanced interprofessional education (Sim-IPE) teaching strategy fostered communication and interdisciplinary awareness between students from multiple disciplines.Method: This pretest-posttest design surveyed undergraduate students from 5 disciplines. The Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education-Revised tool examined students' perceptions of teamwork and roles after an in-depth, multistate critical care simulation experience.Results: All students' perceptions of teamwork increased after the Sim-IPE. More experience in the health care field is associated with an increased perception of teamwork and roles/responsibilities.Discussion: On the basis of these findings, the critical care Sim-IPE was an effective teaching strategy to increase the perception of roles and responsibilities of interprofessional critical care team members with applicability to many other specialty topics.