Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Education Among Medical Students of a German Private Medical School Network

Interprofessional education (IPE) in healthcare remains insufficiently studied, despite the World Health Organization's strong emphasis. Research on attitudes toward IPE among medical students (MS) from private medical schools is particularly limited. To study the attitudes toward IPE among MS from German private medical schools. Using an online survey, positive and negative predictors of IPE attitudes, as measured by the validated German version of the Interprofessional Learning Scale of the University of the West of England Interprofessional Questionnaire (UWE-IP-D ILS), were identified from 256 MS at four private German medical schools. Additionally, MS selected preferred preclinical / clinical curriculum subjects for IPE. The overall UWE-IP-D ILS mean (standard error) score was 20.27 (± 8.16). Multiple regression analysis identified female sex as a significant positive predictor of positive IPE attitudes, even after Bonferroni correction (p = 0.006). However, IPE attitudes tended to decrease over the study years (non-statistically significant trend). Basic sciences, mental health disciplines, and family medicine were most frequently identified as most appropriate subjects for IPE. More than 80% of participants expressed willingness to allocate teaching activities to IPE within and outside the regular curriculum. The survey results support the implementation of structured IPE programs and guide IPE embedding in the German medical curriculum.