M45. Transforming Healthcare for Schizophrenia Through Innovation in Graduate Education

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) are associated with health barriers amenable to intervention by a variety of professions, making interprofessional education (IPE) necessary to prepare students for team based care. Educating psychiatric nursing, exercise physiology, nutrition and pharmacy graduate students together will foster holistic assessment and treatment practices to promote health, empowerment, and well-being for this vulnerable group.

Methods: Two psychiatric nurse practitioners, an exercise physiologist, a registered dietician and a pharmacist developed the 4-week Recovery-Based Interprofessional Distance Education (RIDE) rotation for graduate students in the 4 disciplines. RIDE culminated in a 3-day community clinical intensive. Student teams provided recovery-based assessments and collaborated with clients with SSDs to produce a plan to meet client recovery goals. Following IRB approval and the granting of consent, a convenience sample of students ( N = 46) completed the Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety-TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire (T-TAQ) anonymously pre- and post-RIDE (Baker, Krokos & Amodeo, 2008).

Results: Thirty-four (73.9%) students were female, 39 (84.8%) Caucasian, 5 (10.8%) African American, 1 (2.1%) Asian and 1 Hispanic/Latino. 24 (52.1%) were mental health nursing, 11 (23.9%) pharmacy, 6 (13.0%) nutrition and 5 (10.8%) exercise physiology. 31 (67.4%) had healthcare experience. Paired sample t tests indicated no significant differences in pre and posttest means on any team constructs, due in large part to exceedingly high pretest scores. We identified the Team Development Measure (TDM-Stock, Mahoney & Carney, 2013) to more accurately reflect team development; this measure was piloted with cohort 3 ( n = 18). TDM scores range 0–100; higher scores represent higher team functioning. The overall pre-test mean was 60.73 (SD = 11.85), ie, students anticipated their RIDE team would function at a moderately high level. The overall post-test mean was 72.71 (SD 23.31), an average increase of 11.98 points. Cohen’s effect size value ( d = 0.43) indicated a large magnitude of differences observed.

Conclusion: Education experts advocate using innovative teaching models of interprofessional, team based care to improve client outcomes. IPE is an important strategy to prepare graduate students to function as team members contributing their expertise in health and recovery for persons with SSDs, owing to the co-occurrence of SSDs with multiple chronic medical conditions as well as the presence of health barriers amenable to intervention by interdisciplinary teams. Our results suggest the RIDE program positively impacted team values and skills, exceeding student expectations for team development and effectiveness. Our next investigation will examine SSD client responses to the RIDE student team interaction.