106 - Health Profession Students’ Perceptions on Interprofessional Collaboration in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation

Objectives: Prior literature on Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has identified its benefits and deficits in multiple roles in the healthcare field. However, a gap exists regarding the understanding of IPC between medical students in relation to physical therapy and occupational therapy students undergoing their discipline’s respective Interprofessional Educatioon (IPE). Understanding student perceptions of current IPE curriculum in OT, PT, and medical schools can help highlight what curriculum changes may be needed

Design: An online survey was distributed to two allopathic medical (MD) schools, one osteopathic (DO) medical school, one occupational therapy (OT) program, and one physical therapy (PT) program in the Northeast US between October 2022 to February 2023. Participants read and completed an informed consent form before participating in the survey. The study was approved by the Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine’s IRB (PRO-2022-254). The connotation of spinal cord injury (SCI) neurorehabilitation was employed due to it being identified as a common location in which all disciplines interact. Additionally, the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration (JeffSATIC) was administered with each online survey. Majority of question types were similar, with multiple analytic tests (i.e. ANOVA, t-test, usw.) being employed to analyze significance and post-hoc between groups significance. The survey questions used Likert-scale ranging between 5 and 7 point questions. The JeffSATIC was scored between 20-140

Results:
In calculating the JeffSATIC scores between groups, most scored similarly, with MD students scoring slightly lower. When comparing MD students’ scores to that of osteopathic, occupational therapy, and physical therapy, significant differences were noted ( p = 0.001, p = 0.0004, p = 0.01 respectively).





Conclusions: The survey highlighted the prevalence of previously mentioned stereotypes plaguing student perceptions and the need for future healthcare professionals to better understand the depth of knowledge and training of their colleagues.