Enabling collaboration and building trust among health science students attending an interprofessional educational project

Abstract

Establishing trust is a central element in a context that supports learning about collaborative relationships. The goal of interprofessional education is that personal trust developed in student groups can be transferred and generalised to representatives of corresponding professional groups when the students begin their professional practice. There seems however to be a research gap in identifying how interprofessional education might contribute to building trust. We explored how students’ reflective journals in an interprofessional education project indicate how different types of trust can be built in the group of health science students attending practice in four intermediate care units. Using a hermeneutic approach to the text, we analysed 40 reflective journals from 13 nursing students, 7 physiotherapist students and 4 occupational students. We found that a clinical programme encouraging the development of trust and confidence might be conceivable. The bachelor programme should give the students’ time and possibilities to put into words and reflect on their own expectations to build trust, warranting for learning that interprofessional cooperation could help in gaining trust in the competence of their own and other professions.