Background Collaborative work between multiple health professions provides high quality health services and results in optimum outcomes, and interprofessional education is known as an effective strategy for improving attitudes towards interprofessional work. However, it has been repeatedly reported that physicians have poor attitudes towards collaboration with other health professionals, and how medical trainees develop their collaborative attitude during undergraduate education has not been examined in detail. The aim of this study was to investigate how medical trainees’ collaborative attitude changes and whether educational intervention modifies this process.
Methods This was a cross-sectional study targeting first- (just after admission), fourth- (pre-clinical) and sixth- (prior to graduation) year medical students in seven medical schools in Japan, second-year residents in four medical school hospitals, and doctors in one university. A survey using the Japanese version of the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration was conducted from 2016 to 2017. The average score of each group, institution and gender, and the relationship between scores and length of teamwork courses and clinical clerkship were analyzed.
Results A total of 2504 (response rate 83.0%) responses were received. The average scores of first-, fourth- and sixth-year medical students, residents, and doctors were 110.1, 105.8, 105.6, 102.4, and 107.0, respectively. A three-way analysis of variance of students’ scores showed that learning year, institution, gender, and the interaction between institution and learning year were significant variables. Scores of female students were significantly higher than those of male students.
The length of interprofessional education courses in preclinical years was significantly correlated with scores among fourth-year students, but not sixth-year medical students. The length of clinical clerkship was significantly correlated with scores among sixth-year medical students.
Conclusion Collaborative attitude towards teamwork was low among advanced year medical students and residents. Clinical practice with multiple professions in long-term clinical clerkship, which was classified as transprofessional education, might be the most effective intervention for improving attitudes towards collaboration among medical students.