Interprofessional training for undergraduate rehabilitation therapy students at the University of the Witwatersrand enhancing cancer rehabilitation in South Africa.
Vaneshveri Naidoo, Kim Coutts, Merling Phaswana and 4 others
Final-year PT, OT and SLP students at one South African university reported high self-rated interprofessional competence after a single cancer case session.
The two lowest items were avoiding jargon and giving feedback to peers.
Key findings
1Students reported high agreement across all four IPEC domains, with median scores ranging from 42.5 (Roles and Responsibilities) to 55.0 (Teams and Teamwork).
2The two lowest-scoring items were 'Avoid discipline-specific terminology when possible' (82.5% agreement) and 'Give timely, sensitive feedback to others about their performance on the team' (84.1% agreement).
3Three themes emerged from open-ended student feedback: their experience of the activity, understanding of each profession's scope of practice, and the value of teamwork.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Self-reported perceptions only; no observed collaborative behaviour was measured, so the scores reflect what students thought they could do, not what they actually did. Single university, single one-hour session, no control group and no before-and-after comparison, so the data describe one snapshot of attitudes rather than a learning effect. Only PT, OT and SLP students were included; nursing, medicine, dietetics and other professions that make up a real oncology team were absent. No longitudinal follow-up, so it is unknown whether these attitudes persist once students enter clinical practice. One hundred and forty students from one institution in South Africa; generalisability to other settings is limited.
Declared interests
The authors state the research received no specific grant from any public, commercial or not-for-profit funding agency.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high agreement scores as proof that one IPE session builds interprofessional competence. The data are self-reported perceptions from a single session at one university, with no observed behaviour, no control group, and no follow-up to see whether these attitudes persist.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →