- Title
- Enhancing safe medication practices: an interprofessional education approach
- Creator
- Lapkin, Samuel
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis by publication reports on four interconnected research stages that explore the effectiveness of university based interprofessional education (IPE) in relation to medication safety. At the time of submission, two papers have been published in peer- reviewed journals and two manuscripts are undergoing review. It is widely accepted that health professional students who learn together will be better prepared for contemporary practice and more able to work collaboratively and communicate effectively. In Australia, IPE is recognised as important for preparing nursing, pharmacy and medical students for their roles in the medication team. Evidence indicates that inadequate communication between health care professionals is the primary issue in the majority of medication errors. Despite this, IPE is seldom used for teaching medication safety. This project began with a literature review exploring issues of IPE as they relate specifically to medication safety. This was followed by a systematic review to appraise and synthesise the best available evidence on the effectiveness of IPE in university based health professional programs. Few rigorously evaluated studies of IPE were found, indicating an inadequate evidence base to inform future activities, particularly in relation to medication safety. A cross-sectional survey of IPE in Australian and New Zealand Universities reinforced these findings, with respondents reporting few examples of true IPE, a lack of structured and integrated IPE activities, and few links to student assessment. The pragmatic challenges associated with evaluating behavioural outcomes of educational activities, as well as timetabling and inadequate resources, were identified as key challenges to the systematic implementation and evaluation of IPE. In an effort to address some of these barriers the Theory of Planned Behaviour Medication Safety Questionnaire (TPB-MSQ) was developed to assess nursing, medical and nursing students’ behavioural intentions in relation to medication safety as a proxy for actual behaviour change. Pilot-testing proved the questionnaire to be a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating students’ behavioural intentions. The questionnaire was subsequently used in a quasi-experimental study to examine the effectiveness of a web-based module incorporating IPE and communication as strategies to promote medication safety. Students who were exposed to the web-based module demonstrated significantly greater intention to practice in a way that enhances medication safety and collaborative practice than those who were not, as evidenced by higher scores on the TPB-MSQ. Taken together, the findings presented in this thesis provide evidence to support the use of web-based learning modules which incorporate IPE as an innovative approach to promote patient safety. Web-based IPE offers health professional students an opportunity to learn about and from other disciplines even when they do not have the opportunity to learn with them. However, further research is necessary to explore to the transferability of the acquired behaviours into clinical practice and the impact of these on medication related patient outcomes such as length of stay and medication incidents.
- Subject
- interprofessional education; medication safety; health professional education; theory of planned behaviour; thesis by publication
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1040012
- Identifier
- uon:13733
- Rights
- Copyright 2014 Samuel Lapkin
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Abstract | 165 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 7 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |