Evaluating the impact of an interprofessional education intervention on health profession students' perceptions and collaborative competencies in Lebanon: a quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND: With increasing complexity in patient care, IPE has been proposed to improve interprofessional teamwork and improve outcomes. This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of a structured IPE activity on students' collaborative perceptions and competencies. METHOD: This study employed a quasi-experimental pre-post intervention design to assess changes in perceptions and self-reported competencies using validated tools (SPICE-R2 and ICCAS). The IPE intervention comprised a full day didactic sessions and case studies. Paired-samples t-tests, repeated measures ANOVA, and MANCOVA were utilized to assess changes and identify predictors. RESULTS: A total of 182 students (pharmacy: 66.5%, nutrition: 15.9%, and biomedical sciences: 17.6%) were included, with 154 students (84.6%) responding to the postsurvey. The pre-activity total SPICE-R2 score was moderately high (40.81 ± 6.09), and increased significantly to 45.65 ± 5.61 (p < 0.001) post-activity, with all subscales of interprofessional teamwork, roles and responsibilities, and patient outcomes showing significant improvements (p < 0.001). The pre-activity total ICCAS score was moderately high (73.13 ± 7.35), and increased significantly to 87.51 ± 5.25 (p < 0.001) with the greatest gains observed in communication (+ 4.13), conflict resolution (+ 3.04), and team functioning (+ 2.10). Compared with pharmacy students, nutrition students showed greater improvements in both SPICE-R2 (B = 9.193, p < 0.001) and ICCAS (B = 6.605, p = 0.007) scores. Students with prior health education and IPE exposure reported greater improvements in both SPICE-R2 and ICCAS scores (p < 0.05). Conversely, clinical employment significantly predicted lower gains on the SPICE-R2 (B=-3.136, p = 0.047). CONCLUSION: The intervention led to significant improvements in interprofessional collaborative perceptions and competencies. Future longitudinal evaluations are needed to assess sustained impact and transfer to clinical practice.