Administrator attitudes, barriers, and diffusion of interprofessional education in United States sub-baccalaureate health sciences programs.

摘要

This quantitative study provided data to establish the adoption rates of interprofessional education in didactic settings, interprofessional collaborative practice in clinical settings, and assess administrator attitudes and perceived barriers toward interprofessional education. Administrators in the purview of 24 health science professions in United States sub-baccalaureate health science programs responded to a survey about administrator and school type characteristics, the prevalence of interprofessional education in health science programs, timelines of adoption, and if their schools collaborate with universities and academic health centers in interprofessional education endeavors. A hypothetical adoption timeline of United States interprofessional education was created using tenets of the diffusion of innovation's theory. Overall, 686 administrators responding to the survey report 44.4% of sub-baccalaureate colleges have active interprofessional education didactic programs, and 58.7% have interprofessional collaborative practice activities in their clinical environments. In an inferential analysis, administrator attitudes toward interprofessional education and school type was statistically significant, in that career schools exhibit more positive attitudes toward interprofessional education than community colleges. There was a strong, positive correlation between administrator attitudes, and perceived barriers in a Pearson product-moment correlation. Overall, administrators have positive attitudes toward interprofessional education, but they report that their schools experience barriers toward interprofessional education initiatives.