Can Patients Differentiate When They Receive Integrated Care by Interprofessional Teams? Meta-analysis of a Pilot Study

Abstract

Introduction

A patient's quality of care and satisfaction depends greatly on the perception of being treated and attended to by an integrated team of professionals.

Objectives

To make students mindful of a patient's perception of being treated by a blended interprofessional team when undergraduate students in training perform as a team in the patient's care.

Aims

To assess if patients under the care of interprofessional teams perceive, they are being treated by an integrated team.

Methods

Twenty-three undergraduate students undergoing a seven-day period of interprofessional training interviewed their common patients after each day of practice. Responses were given on a “yes-no-do not know” scale to the following question: “a team of students from different professions has just treated and cared for you. Do you think they have acted like a well-coordinated team?” Results were obtained by meta-analysis.

Results

In 60.9% of cases (Tau² = 0.042; Q (2df) = 12.663; Het. P-value = 0.002; I² = 84.206%) (Fig. 1), patients perceived they were treated by a well-coordinated interprofessional team; however, this perception was not affected by the days of training by the same IPE team.

Conclusions

Results suggest that other interpersonal factors might be involved in team-to-patient interactions that are barely affected by interprofessional training.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Fig. 1

Meta-analysis of patient's perception of being treated by a coordinated team.