Traditional medical education is to develop uni-professionals,and is lacking of opportunities for interprofessional communication and interprofessional collaboration.The failure of communication and collaboration is an important cause of medical errors.Interprofessional education is a new strategy to remove professional prejudice,promote interprofessional collaborative competency and improve patients'outcomes.From September 2012,we began to provide Interprofessional Education Program for healthcare undergraduates,and achievements have already been made.
ObjectiveTo investigate the status quo of readiness for and attitude towards interprofessional learning among sophomore undergraduates and analyze the correlation between them, so as to provide a reference for the development of interprofessional education in China.MethodsFrom September to November 2018, with the convenience sampling method, the Chinese versions of Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale and Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale were used to carry out a cross-sectional study among the second-year undergraduates of 2017 from a medical university in Nanjing.ResultsA total of 341 sophomores were surveyed. The median score of readiness for interprofessional learning was 69.00 with the interquartile range being 11.00, and the median score of attitude towards interprofessional collaboration was 86.00 with the interquartile range being 14.00. Additionally, there was a positive correlation between interprofessional readiness and attitude (rs=0.282, P<0.001).ConclusionSophomore undergraduates are generally in a positive state of readiness for interprofessional learning as well as attitude towards interprofessional collaboration, and there is a positive correlation between interprofessional readiness and attitude, suggesting that it is worth considering to carry out interprofessional education activities among medical sophomore undergraduates.