Design and evaluation of a tool to assess the impact of interprofessional education on the development of pharmacy professional competencies

Background: Several generic tools to assess interprofessional education (IPE) are available, but a tool specifically designed to measure the impact of IPE experiences on the development of pharmacy competencies is lacking. The aim was to develop, psychometrically evaluate, and pilot test a tool to assess the impact of IPE on pharmacy competency development. Methods: A tool to measure the impact of IPE on pharmacy competency development was constructed and validated through a two-round Delphi technique. The internal consistency of the tool was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. The tool was subsequently distributed to students (n = 32) and alumni (n = 14) of a postgraduate pharmacy professional doctorate course who had IPE experiences. Results: The developed ‘Interprofessional Education on Pharmacy Competencies (IPEPC)’ tool consists of ten items divided into four core competencies. The tool demonstrated adequate internal consistency between the items in each of the core competencies. Significant improvements in the scores for teamwork (p = 0.026) and ethics competencies (p = 0.037) were observed when comparing scores achieved for doctorate students in the different years of study and alumni of the same course. Conclusion: This study could demonstrate that the tool was able to detect different IPE competencies in pharmacy education. It also revealed that teamwork and ethics competencies may be positively influenced by participants’ years of study and experience.