Scientific Poster Session III: Late-Breaking Original Research

Abstract

The opioid crisis remains a significant public health concern in the United States, with escalating rates of overdose and poisoning. However, healthcare professional schools have limited curricular time to address this issue. In response, faculty at Roseman University and Touro University have developed an Interprofessional Education (IPE) annual event to improve student understanding and comfort levels in addressing substance use disorder (SUD) and providing overdose/poisoning prevention.

Research Question or Hypothesis:

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of a SUD focused IPE education by measuring healthcare professional student comfort levels regarding overdose prevention and SUD treatment.

Study Design:

An anonymous cross-sectional study was conducted using pre- and post-IPE surveys in Qualtrics.

Methods:

In 2022 and 2023, IPE students from 4 healthcare programs (PharmD, Nursing, PA and DO) were invited to complete surveys rating their comfort level with counseling on naloxone, initiating critical conversations, and familiarity with community resources (Likert scale 1-5). Pre- and post-IPE results were compared from year to year and by program, using SPSS v29, with an alpha of 0.05 for superiority.

Results:

Each year, over 245 healthcare professional students participated in the SUD-focused IPE event. All survey response rates were over 50%. Over 60% of respondents were female and about one-third were from PharmD. In both years, the highest improvement was seen in familiarity with community resources for SUD (1.03, CI 0.81-1.25) and comfort in naloxone counseling (0.8, CI 0.59-1.01). Increases were also seen with comfort levels in initiating conversations with high risk patients (0.58, CI 0.39-0.75) and patients with OUD (0.56, CI 0.37-0.75). Significant increases were observed across all programs (p < 0.05).

Conclusion:

IPE continues to be a great opportunity to impact future health professionals’ comfort levels in initiating critical conversations surrounding substance use, providing overdose prevention counseling, and increasing awareness of community resources.

Presenting Author

Authors