Attitudes toward interprofessional practice among healthcare students in a Nigerian University.

This study assessed attitudes of undergraduate healthcare students in Nigeria toward interprofessional practice. A cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of 489 dental, medical, medical laboratory science, nursing, physiotherapy, and radiography students from a public university was conducted. The 14-item Attitudes Toward Healthcare Teamwork Scale was used to assess the students' attitudes. Data were summarized using descriptive statistics while differences in attitudes based on students' age, gender, year of study, and course of study were identified using inferential statistics. The findings showed that there were more (n= 281; 57.5%) male respondents and mean age was 25 years. Mean attitude score was 53.75 (±7.41) out of 70 depicting an overall positive attitude. Year and course of study resulted in statistically significant (p< .001) differences in attitudes with students in the sixth year of study, and medical students having more positive attitudes than their colleagues in junior years and other courses respectively. Most students agreed that interprofessional practice facilitates optimal patient care but also agreed with statements that portray interprofessional practice as unnecessarily time consuming. Integration of interprofessional education into existing undergraduate healthcare professions curricula in Nigeria could help address misconceptions and reinforce positive attitudes toward interprofessional practice.

Caregiving Appraisal by Family Caregivers of Stroke Survivors in Nigeria.

Introduction: Attending to caregiving experiences of family caregivers of stroke survivors is important in person-centered stroke rehabilitation. This study explored caregiving appraisals by family caregivers of stroke survivors in Nigeria. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of family caregivers' negative and positive appraisals of caregiving was conducted using the 24-item 4-domain revised Caregiving Appraisal Scale (rCAS). Mann Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to identify differences in caregiving appraisals based on specific caregiver and stroke survivor variables. Results: Seventy-three caregiver and care recipient dyads participated in the study. Mean age of the caregivers was 31.51 (9.82) years. From a score of 5, and higher scores depicting higher appraisal, mean (SD) score for caregiving satisfaction and caregiving mastery (positive appraisal domains) was 4.23 (0.97) and 4.04 (0.92) respectively while 2.29 (0.98) and 2.11 (0.93) were respectively recorded for caregiving burden and environmental impact (negative appraisal). Caregivers' gender, age, and employment status resulted in significantly different appraisals with female caregivers having higher caregiving mastery (U = 446, P<0.05), caregiving satisfaction (U = 384.5, P<0.01), and also caregiving burden (U = 382.5, P<0.01) compared to their male counterparts; while older (U = 330; P<0.05) and employed (U = 437.5, P<0.05) family caregivers reported higher caregiving satisfaction and burden respectively than younger and unemployed family caregivers. Conclusion: Given the comparatively higher positive caregiving appraisal, and the documented benefits of positive caregiving appraisal, efforts should be geared towards identifying effective means of reinforcing positive appraisal, and reducing negative stroke caregiving appraisal, especially for female, older and employed family caregivers.