Impact of a stroke interprofessional simulation on health professional students

Introduction: The objective was to describe the interprofessional stroke simulation delivered across three campuses with seven types of health professions students and the impact the activity had on the students. Methods: An interprofessional stroke simulation event was completed with pharmacy, medical, nursing, physician assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech pathology students across a multi-site campus. Pre-activity, demographic information was requested including age, gender, discipline, year in respective program, number of experiences in prior interprofessional events, and comfort working with other health care professionals. The survey was repeated after the session and gathered free-text responses on whether learners gained information on working together, if they learned about the roles of other health care workers, and if they found the session useful. Results: A total of 1820 health care professional students completed the simulation activity over four years. Of those students, 1035 (57%) completed the pre-survey, and 884 (49%) completed the post-survey. From the post-survey results, 91.5% of participants felt that they learned how health care disciplines can work together. Also, 87% of participants felt more comfortable working with learners from other professions. Most participants agreed the session was useful (77.1%) and rated it as moderately to extremely effective (81.8%). Conclusions: Interprofessional sessions with health care professional students are beneficial for learning new information about other professions and enhancing comfort levels in working with interprofessional groups. The interprofessional simulation improved the comfort level of students working with other health care professional students and should be considered in professional student curricula.