Interprofessional Education in Canada: Addressing Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Concerning Intellectual Disability for Future Healthcare Professionals

With the deinstitutionalization movement in Canada, healthcare professionals are caring for a greater number of individuals with intellectual disability (ID) in their practices, and inevitably require additional training to provide this care. Queen's University has responded to this need and developed an innovative educational course promoting interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional practice (IPC) as it relates to ID curriculum and healthcare provision. This study measured healthcare students' change in knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward individuals with ID and how it affected their readiness for interprofessional care. Subjects were graduate students from the fields of medicine, nursing, clinical psychology, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy. Course curriculum developed used a blended teaching approach with a combination of online learning, lectures, team-based problem solving, and client interviews. Evaluation was completed on 247 students, utilizing a pre-post course questionnaire addressing content areas of knowledge, skills, and attitude, and by analyzing individual professional differences. Significant differences were found, indicating improvements in student knowledge and skills for the majority of disciplines after course participation. A positive trend was found in outcome responses for student attitudinal change, ranging from neutral to positive attributions about individuals with ID. Authors note improvements in student learning and positive attitudinal change following an educational course concerning optimal healthcare and collaborative practice in ID. They propose that an interprofessional blended training curriculum for future healthcare professionals can foster best practice and quality service for this currently underserved population.