Effectiveness of Teamwork Education Program for Multidisciplinary UndergraduatesMei-Jin Chen-Sea1, Jer-Hao Chang2, Ling-Yi Lin2, Yea-Shwu Hwang2, Wen-Yun Cheng3, Chih-Hung Chen4, Jing-Jane Tsai4

Institute of Allied Health Sciences1; Department of Occupational Therapy2; Department of Nursing3; Department of Medicine4 ; National Cheng Kung University

Participants: We recruited 7 medical students, 7 nursing

students and 10 occupational therapy students, participated in the 8-week CTE program at a neurological ward. Table 1 presents all participants’ characteristics.

This study was supported by National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC 100-2511-S-006-008).

Correspondence:Emeritus Professor Mei-Jin Chen-Sea meijin@mail.ncku.edu.tw

The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the CTE program on enhancing the teamwork cooperation among multidisciplinary undergraduates. All students significantly improved their perceptions on the following subscales of the T-TPQ: team structure, situation monitoring, mutual support and communication. However, there was no significant difference in the subscale of leadership. The reason could be that there were few situations such as conflict negotiation or resources arrangement observed during the short duration of the CTE program.

According to the program evaluation, all students expressed that they had learned the importance of teamwork practice for improving the quality of patient care. Our findings demonstrated that the CTE program was a successful model to enhance multidisciplinary undergraduates’ teamwork performances.

The limitations of the study included small sample size and short duration of CTE program. In the future study, we suggest to increase the number of participants and lengthen the period of the CTE program.

In conclusion, the CTE program is a good model of teamwork education and can be used to foster the life-wide learning of the students.

Introduction

Methods

Discussion and Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Results

Battles, J., &King, H. B. (2008).TeamSTEPPS TM Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ) Manual. Washington: American Institutes for Research.

References

In order to meet the needs of holistic health care, we have to improve the status of cooperative education team and to enhance the communication and integration of medical professionals caring for patients in clinical practice. A Clinical Teamwork Education (CTE) program based on a framework of Knowledge-Attitude-Practice model was created to facilitate the development of the teamwork attitudes into students’ fieldwork practice. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the CTE program on multidiscipline undergraduates.

Measures:1.The TeamSTEEPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ; Battles & King, 2008) was a 5-point Likert scale to assess students’ learning and teamwork perceptions at the initial and final stages of the program.2.The program evaluation form with 5-point Likert scale designed by researchers was used to investigate student’s learning satisfaction by self-report .

Analysis:1.Descriptive statistics2.Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test

Medical

(N=7)

Nursing

(N=7)

OT

(N=10)

Mean Age (SD) 25.0 (1.5) 21.0 (0.0) 22.3 (2.5)

Gender: M/F(%) 42.9/57.1 28.6/71.4 40.0/60.0

Initiation Completion

Teamwork Perceptions Mean Range Mean Range

p

Team Structure 3.95 3.00-5.00 4.22 3.57-5.00 0.03

Leadership 4.08 2.43-5.00 4.02 2.14-5.00 0.59

Situation Monitoring 4.02 3.14-5.00 4.26 3.71-5.00 0.03

Mutual Support 3.87 2.43-5.00 4.18 3.00-5.00 0.03

Communication 3.92 2.71-4.86 4.22 3.29-5.00 0.01

1. Compared to the scores of the T-TPQ in the beginning of the CTE program, significantly higher scores were demonstrated in the subscales of the T-TPQ, including Team Structure (Z=-2.14, p=0.03), Situation Monitoring (Z=-2.20, p=0.03), Mutual Support (Z=-2.20, p=0.03), and Communication (Z=-2.60, p=0.03) after the program (Table 2).

Table 2. Teamwork Perceptions in the Initiation and Completion of the CTE Program

2. The results of the program evaluation form revealed that participants were very satisfied with the CTE program. All participants agreed that the program provided them an opportunity to cooperate with other professions (4.580.50), learn more knowledge of their own profession (4.460.59), understand the role and function of others’ professions (4.580.50), and identify the health needs of patients (4.540.51).

Table 1. Characteristics of Participants