Dental and Dental Hygiene Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Education.

Purpose: Commission on Dental Accreditation standards for dental and dental hygiene programs include interprofessional education (IPE) experiences within the curriculum; an initial step in the acquisition and application of IPE is for students to perceive it as relevant. The purpose of this study is to identify dental and dental hygiene students' attitudes regarding IPE following the completion of a novel interprofessional course involving health professional students from six different degree programs.Methods: Faculty members from the Schools of Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing, and Pharmacy designed a one-hour, required course focusing on collaborative practice, roles and responsibilities, teamwork, and communication. Students from six different professional programs were divided into interprofessional teams for the thirteen session IPE course. Upon completion of the course, all participants (n=487), were invited to complete an online course evaluation survey utilizing the Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education (SPICE-R2) instrument. A retrospective pre-test-post-test approach was used to assess attitudinal change.Results: A total of 300 students from the six health care professions (n=300) completed the SPICE-R2 pre- and post-test surveys for a response rate of 62%. In general, students reported significantly more positive perceptions about IPE after completion (M = 39.7, SD = 7.57) than they did prior to the course (M = 36.6, SD = 7.13), t(299) = -9.24, p < .001; and the effect size was moderate (Cohen's d = .535). One-way analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for student program on change in scores on the total SPICE-R2 scale. Although post- tests did not reveal differences between specific programs, dental hygiene students exhibited the greatest attitudinal change, while dental students demonstrated the lowest.Conclusions: Sample sizes from the six healthcare programs varied and serve as a limitation for this study. Findings suggest that dental hygiene students may perceive greater benefit from IPE because they see themselves as collaborative practitioners. while dental students may self-identify as leaders of the oral healthcare team. Further research is warranted to examine students' perceptions of IPE to determine the potential impact and success of these curricular activities.