Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations.
Students representing seven health professions (N = 347) were invited to attend a 2-hour interprofessional workshop and complete surveys examining perceptions of interprofessional teamwork and understanding of discipline-specific roles while addressing the opioid crisis. Significant improvements were found that can help guide curriculum development and future research initiatives for health professions students.
Primary Author and Speaker: Kelle Deboth
Additional Authors and Speakers: Madalynn Wendland
BACKGROUND: A 2017 report from the CDC indicates over 70,000 people lost their life due to drug overdose. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to consider professional and individual roles in addressing the opioid epidemic, develop interprofessional approaches to care, determine appropriate intervention approaches, and provide harm reduction resources and help connect those struggling with addition to needed treatments. In order to help produce competent entry-level healthcare professionals, including occupational therapists, the purpose of this interprofessional education (IPE) initiative is to empower future healthcare professionals to understand their role in addressing the opiate epidemic and feel competent in working with patients struggling with addiction or those at risk of addiction or relapse. We aimed to assess the value of a specific interprofessional workshop curriculum in achieving statistically significant improvement in occupational therapy and other health professional students self-described confidence identifying their values and beliefs as they relate to substance abuse, responding appropriately when interacting with someone with a substance abuse disorder, quickly finding local harm reduction resources, and quickly finding local, available substance abuse treatment resources for a person struggling with addiction.
METHODS: Students representing seven health professions (n = 347) were invited to participate in a pretest survey examining perceptions of interprofessional teamwork and understanding of discipline-specific roles addressing the opioid crisis. All students were then invited to attend a 2 hour interprofessional workshop which included a panel discussion from law enforcement leading an assisted addiction recovery program, a community activist in long term recovery from opioid addiction and an occupational therapist who specializes in pain management, and brief presentations on the roles of different healthcare professions addressing patient pain and the opiate epidemic. Working in interprofessional teams, students were provided a case study and a series of discussion questions. Participants were asked to complete a follow-up post-test survey.
RESULTS: Pre- and post-test measures of student's confidence in four areas (values and beliefs, responding appropriately, finding harm reduction resources, and quickly finding treatment resources) were analyzed using paired sample t-tests, from five point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) survey responses. A total of 220 students completed both the pretest survey and the post-test survey. There was a statistically significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores regarding: values and beliefs as they relate to substance abuse [t(219) = -3.991, p = .000]; responding appropriately when interacting with someone with a substance abuse disorder [t(219) = -8.759, p = .000]; confidence finding local harm reduction resources [t(219) = 14.205, p = .000]; quickly finding local, available substance abuse treatment resources for a person struggling with addiction [t(219) = 14.991, p = .000]. Our results indicate that IPE workshops can be useful tools in health professions curricula to: (1) highlight the importance of interprofessionals working together to identify problems of substance use disorder, (2) educate students in the roles of each discipline in providing care for the opioid addicted individual, and (3) understand their own personal value and belief systems. The results of this study suggest that IPE workshops are beneficial for training students across all disciplines regardless of their prior knowledge or clinical experience in their response to individuals with opioid use.
References
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