Shaping healthcare students' collaboration- exploring interprofessional education in primary healthcare practice.

Abstract

Interprofessional education (IPE) is essential to enable development of healthcare students' collaborative competencies and thus prepare them for collaborative practice as healthcare professionals. Existing IPE research has mainly been conducted in inpatient care units. As healthcare increasingly will be based on primary healthcare interventions, IPE arranged in such settings needs to be further examined. This empirical study was designed with a focused ethnographic approach, informed by the theory of practice architectures, and aimed to investigate how IPE arranged in primary healthcare prefigures students' interprofessional collaboration. Four student teams consisting of nursing, occupational therapy and medical students were observed during an IPE placement in primary healthcare. The results of this study suggest that students' interprofessional collaboration during IPE is prefigured by intended arrangements, i.e. those that are part of the IPE design as well as arrangements inherent in the primary healthcare practice. These arrangements were at times contradictory, which affected the students' focus on, as well as conditions and incentives to engage in interprofessional collaboration. Thus, when implementing IPE in an already existing practice, it is crucial that the educational context is carefully considered to ensure that the intention of the IPE practice can be achieved.