Research Day
The Effect Of An Interprofessional Stroke Simulation On Enhancing Medical And Allied Health Students' Knowledge Of Professional Roles In Practice
Document Type
Abstract
Date
2019
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Medical, occupational therapy (OT) and speech language pathology (SLP) students participated in a simulation on management of a patient with stroke. This simulation required cooperation between participants to work together as a team to communicate and make recommendations for post-stroke care.
OBJECTIVE: IRB approval was obtained to study whether the participants increased understanding of the roles and responsibilities of physicians and allied health professionals in patient management after the event.
METHODS: The intended learners for this simulation included 21 OT, 25 SLP, and 67 medical students; no controls were used. A pre-and post-test was administered and results analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the simulation.
RESULTS: The Wilcoxon Signed Rank (WSR) test indicates that the effect of the simulation on the change in number of correct responses from pre-to post is significant (p=0.0155) at the 0.05 level for the medical students. For OT and SLP students, the WSR test indicates the simulation is not significant (p=0.3984) and (p=1.000), respectively at the 0.05 level.
CONCLUSION: Medical students had statistically significant improvements on their posttests; OT and SLP students did not. This simulation provides a valuable, effective tool for enhancing medical students' knowledge of healthcare roles. Future research includes exploring whether or not there were any positive effects from the simulation on OT and SLP students and assessing interprofessional team communication.