Interprofessional Collaboration: A Catalyst for Motivation of Health Students?[La collaboration interprofessionnelle : un catalyseur de motivation pour les étudiants en santé ?]

Introduction and Problem Statement: According to a recent report of the ANEMF (2018), health students are experiencing significant distress. They are currently building their professional identity in an uncertain and stressful context, amidst organizational transformations and socio-economic constraints. This state of malaise leads to a loss of motivation, which, according to the WHO, could be alleviated through interprofessional collaboration. Our research aims to verify if learning interprofessional collaboration can foster a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) that stimulates and supports the motivation to provide care. To explore this issue, we relied on an interprofessional training program in the palliative care sector, held over one day in January 2020, bringing together students in 3rd-year of nursing students, 2nd-year of physiotherapy and 5th-year of medicine. The objective of this program was to put students in a situation to develop collectively a care plan, based on a clinical vignette. The debriefing that followed this session focused on the conditions required for developing interprofessional collaboration in healthcare, with the conative dimension being a major component (Aiguier, 2020). Methodology: Our research is hypothetico-deductive, with a mixed design, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Our stance is both comprehensive and explanatory. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews conducted prior to the program with six students, two from each discipline. Quantitative data were obtained from a questionnaire administered before (T0) and after (T1) the program (n = 156 participants). The interviews were analyzed using conceptual categories, and the quantitative data were processed using various statistical tests (Student's t-test, Pearson's r, and Cronbach's alpha). Results and Discussion: Data analysis shows that such a program supports the motivation to provide care. We found positive correlations between social belonging, the quality of interpersonal relationships, and the sense of collective and personal efficacy. This echoes the heuristic model of individually motivated collectives, characterized by a state of total well-being (Heutte, 2019). It reveals the early stages of a community of practice. Thus, the interprofessional training program serves as a catalyst for motivation. Perspectives: This research suggests a pedagogical re-engineering of health training programs, integrating more interprofessional approaches to enhance the well-being of future healthcare professionals. Such a perspective could also be applied to continuing education to support healthcare professionals on the field. Keywords: interprofessional collaboration, motivation, community of practice, collective and personal efficacy References: 1. Aiguier, G. (2020). Travailler en équipe dans une perspective de collaboration interprofessionnelle. In Manuel de soins palliatifs (5ème édition), sous la dir. de R. LeBerre. Dunod, 1024-1032. 2. Heutte, J. (2019). Les fondements de l'éducation positive. DUNOD. 3. Wenger E., Communities of Practice, Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge University Press, 1998.