5 77 Geriatric IPE for enhancing students’ interest in treating older people INTRODUCTION Healthcare workers specialized in treating older patients are urgently needed, but there is a lack of interest among students for doing this (Liu et al., 2013; Meiboom et al., 2015). WHO suggests interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice as the most promising solutions to overcome this shortage (Gilbert et al., 2010). Since a variety of disciplines are involved in geriatric care, IPE is well-matched with geriatric care education. The combination of IPE and geriatric care education has been studied together in different settings, with different aims (Brown et al., 2018; Flores-Sandoval et al., 2021; Gruss & Hasnain, 2021; Svensberg et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 2020). Only a few studies have investigated if IPE in geriatric care improves students’ motivation for working with older patients. These studies have been conducted without a control group and have given inconclusive results (Basran et al., 2012; McManus et al., 2017; Neils-Strunjas et al., 2020; Washington et al., 2023; Willis et al., 2023). Whether IPE improves students’ motivation to work with older patients remains unanswered. Therefore, the research question for this study was: Does geriatric problem-based interprofessional education influence medical and nursing students’ interest in treating older patients? METHODS Participants Two groups of students were included in this study: (1) Undergraduate third-year nursing students, in a four-year educational program (classroom education alternates with clinical practice). They had finished a theoretical geriatrics course. All groups in that stage of their education program at our facility between March 2018 and March 2019 were included in the study, which meant three groups of nursing students (maximum 24 students per group). Assignment to the IPE- or UPE-group took place at the first session. The nursing students were individually randomly (alphabetically) assigned to the intervention or control group; (2) Undergraduate fourth-year medical students who were starting their master’s program, consisting of different clerkships alternated with a few weeks of classroom based teaching, including a clerkship care for older people in a nursing home. Every six weeks a group of maximum nine students started their clerkships at our educational facility. All groups that started between March 2018 and March 2019 were asked to participate in the study. Assignment to the intervention or control group took place at the first session. Before assigning them to one of the two groups, their schedule was evaluated for a match with the nursing students’ program at all sessions. If there were sessions, for example during holiday
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