Reducing health provider stereotypes through undergraduate interprofessional education

Implementing interprofessional education in the nursing and pharmacy curricula: An evaluation of a workshop focused on optimising of medicines prescribed for mental health problems

BACKGROUND

An inter-professional education (IPE) workshop centred around mental health scenarios was attended and assessed by 70 Nursing and Pharmacy students at the University of Huddersfield.

AIM

The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of a curricula IPE workshop for undergraduate nursing and pharmacy students, focussing on the optimal use of medicines with mental health problems utilising clinically based scenarios.

METHODS

The workshop was evaluated using an internally produced cross-sectional questionnaire completed by student participants from both pharmacy and mental health nursing disciplines, scoring on Process/Knowledge and Relationships domains.

RESULTS

70 participants (41 Mental Health Nursing students; 29 Pharmacy students) completed the questionnaire, who rated the content highly. Scores indicative of positive perception were reported by 65 respondents (92.9 %) on the Process/Knowledge domain and by 66 respondents (94.3 %) on the Relationships domain. Qualitative analysis of student evaluations demonstrated that both cohorts highly valued the workshop, with a shared appreciation of what each student group contributed. There was strong overall positivity toward working inter-professionally.

CONCLUSION

IPE workshops act as a useful tool for promoting positive working relationships and collaboration to aid the effective sharing of knowledge and skills between differing professions.

Adoption and use of immunotherapy in breast cancer management in Africa: barriers and prospect - a narrative review

Breast cancer (BC) is the world's most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, with 7.8 million women diagnosed with BC in the past 5 years. BC has the highest incidence rate of all cancers in women worldwide (1.67 million), accounting for over 500 000 deaths annually. In Africa, BC accounts for 28% of all cancers and 20% of all cancer deaths in women. The African continent has recorded an alarming increase in incidence, with the highest mortality rate globally. Despite BC being a major health concern in Africa, there is limited access to adequate healthcare services to combat the growing need. Immunotherapy, a promising treatment approach that harnesses the immune system's power to fight cancer, has shown great potential in BC management. However, in the face of the growing body of evidence supporting its effectiveness, the adoption and use of immunotherapy in BC management in Africa remain limited. Hence, this review aimed to explore the barriers and prospects of immunotherapy adoption and use in BC management in Africa. A comprehensive search across various databases and sources using specific keywords related to immunotherapy and BC to achieve the study aim was conducted. The criteria for including data in the study were based on relevance and availability in English, with no publication year restrictions. The collected data underwent narrative analysis, supplemented by information from sources like country reports, newsletters, commentaries, policy briefs, and direct Google searches. By identifying the challenges and opportunities, this review provided insights into how healthcare providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders can work together to improve the availability and accessibility of immunotherapy to BC patients in Africa.