Attitude towards shared learning activities and Interprofessional education among dental students in South India

Background: Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC) are being introduced in healthcare institutions gradually to enable comprehensive learning and its application to enhance community health outcomes. Objectives: To assess the attitude of dental students towards Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC) To assess whether Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) is a suitable instrument to measure the attitude of under graduate dental students towards IPE. To assess how the study year and gender affect the attitude of under graduate dental students towards IPE. Methods and materials: The research design was a cross-sectional survey. The dental students of first to fifth year based on availability of students and the existing academic calendar were participated in the study. A total number of 417 validated RIPLS questionnaire were distributed to dental students studying in two dental institutions at Manipal in South India in the year 2017 with the collected response rate of 81.53%. Principal component analysis of the responses was applied to the data along with Varimax rotation and Cronbach alpha to confirm the internal consistency of the questionnaire. Independent sample t test and ANOVA were used to assess the differences between the groups. Results: Seventy five percent of the respondents were females, and the mean age was 21.26 years (SD = 1.34). The mean scores in RIPLS and all its subscales were high. The mean scores were also higher as the year of study increased and with female students. Senior and female dental students had more encouraging attitudes towards shared learning. Conclusions: The RIPLS can be utilised to determine the different subscales of learning namely learning behaviour, attitudes, teamwork and collaboration, professional identity perspectives, and roles and responsibilities towards interprofessional education of dental students. The dental students with an Indian outlook, perspective and training had a favourable attitude towards interprofessional learning.