Measures of interprofessional education and collaboration

Healthcare and social services professionals are being called to engage in interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional collaboration (IPC) in order to provide efficient and effective care to clients and patients. As such, it is important to conduct research that contributes to evaluation of collaborative practice. A necessary component to any strong quantitative research methodology is the type of instruments used for data collection. However, identifying valid and reliable instruments to use in this area of research can be a daunting task. The purpose of this paper is to review the quantitative measures (i.e., surveys and questionnaires) described in the interprofessional literature. Twenty-three instruments were identified and analyzed for validity and reliability statistics, sample size, ease of access to items on measure, and applicability of measure to diverse professional populations. The two primary measures reviewed are the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (Parsell & Bligh, 1998) and the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (Luecht, Madsen, Taugher, & Petterson, 1990). Limited information existed for the remaining measures. Despite the number of measures available for assessing and evaluating IPE and IPC, most lack sufficient theoretical and psychometric development. Several issues that impact the development of sound measures are discussed and implications for future IPC are proposed.