Knowledge of Faculty on Interprofessional Education at a Public University in Kenya

Abstract

Background: Training health professionals in a way that ensures teamwork, collaborative practice and eventually improving quality of care is important. Interprofessional Education (IPE) is one such approach to training. Having faculty that understand and support IPE ensures its uptake and implementation.

Objective: To describe the knowledge of faculty on IPE at a Kenyan public university.

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

Setting: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Kenya.

Subjects: A total of 71 faculty members of the five schools at the college of health sciences, JKUAT were enrolled into the study between July 2020 and September 2020.

Outcome: Comparison of means of knowledge among schools, academic position, and expertise level.

Results: This study had more males (41, 57.7%) than females, almost half(33, 46.5%) of the respondents held the Lecturer position and the mean age of the respondents was 42 years (SD,6.5). Faculty in this survey had good knowledge on IPE with a score 9.62±0.12. When asked to define IPE using an open-ended question, 42 (59%) defined it as shared learning. More than half of the respondents 42(59.2%) were novices on IPE. There was no statistically significant relationship between faculty’s characteristics and their knowledge on IPE in this survey.

Conclusion: The respondents had favorable knowledge on IPE by score however, when asked to define IPE directly participants misinterpreted IPE to mean shared learning. The participants school, academic position and expertise level did not significantly influence knowledge. It is recommended that there should be sensitization among faculty on IPE.