Methods

In order to identify the IPE undertaken within UK schools of pharmacy a questionnaire was developed. Total population sampling was used to invite all UK schools of pharmacy to participate.

3.2.1. Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Ethics Committee prior to conducting this study (see Appendix B).

3.2.2. Sampling

In order to help achieve the most representative and generalisable data, total population sampling was used (Teddlie and Yu, 2007) to invite an academic from all schools of pharmacy providing the undergraduate MPharm programme to participate in the study. At the time of the study, from March 2015 until March 2016, there were 29 schools of pharmacy delivering the MPharm programme (this has since increased to 31 schools). Of the 29 schools, 26 schools were fully accredited and three schools held provisional accreditation.

3.2.3. Recruitment

An academic involved in IPE provision was identified in each school and was invited to participate in the study. These academics were identified through the research team’s academic relationships with colleagues in other schools or through information on school websites.

Once an academic had been identified, they were contacted by telephone to explain the research and to determine if the individual was interested in and suitable for the study; if they were not interested or suitable they were asked to name a more appropriate individual in the school. Where telephone contact could not be made, an email was sent to inform potential participants of the project. If no reply was received, another member of staff was contacted.

Once an appropriate academic member of staff had been identified and provisionally recruited over the telephone or by email, further information was provided by email including an information letter (see Appendix C) as well as a web link to the online

questionnaire. A reminder email was sent to respondents if no response was received 4 weeks after agreeing to participate.

3.2.4. Questionnaire design

The questionnaire (see Appendix D) was designed in order to ascertain the IPE that was taking place as part of the MPharm programme within UK schools of pharmacy. The questionnaire design was informed by current literature in the field of IPE. Google Docs, a free Web-based application in which documents and spreadsheets can be created, was used for the questionnaire. This allowed for the questionnaire to be created, edited and completed using a secure online platform that made for ease of dissemination and data collection. The questionnaire predominantly utilised closed quantitative questions to gain valuable information at relative ease to the respondent (Kumar, 2014), but also included free-text format qualitative questions in order to gather further information.

The questionnaire was designed to be as short as possible, without compromising the key data needed, in order to increase the response rate achieved (Edwards et al., 2009). An approximate completion time of 15 minutes was ascertained following an initial pilot of the questionnaire (see section 3.2.5). An information page was provided at the start of the questionnaire explaining that all responses would be treated confidentially and that any publication of the findings would not name any individual or institution. The information page also provided instructions on how to complete the questionnaire.

The questionnaire comprised four distinct sections. Section A featured a series of multiple choice questions that were used to capture each school’s overall provision of IPE. The questions determined: (i) the total number of undergraduate IPE sessions conducted by the school; (ii) the total number of student healthcare professions taking part across IPE sessions; (iii) the year that IPE was implemented in the school and (iv) if any new IPE sessions were being developed but had not yet been implemented by the school. In addition, respondents were asked to detail their specific role in the development of IPE in the school.

Section B focused on each individual IPE session that was taking place at the school across the 2014/15 academic year. A series of multiple choice and qualitative ‘open’ questions was provided for each individual IPE session in order to determine the specifics surrounding each session. These questions were used to capture: (i) the title of each session; (ii) how long the session had been run; (iii) the year of the MPharm programme in which the session took place; (iv) whether the session was compulsory for pharmacy students; (v) what other healthcare student professions were involved in the session; (vi) where the session was set;

(vii) the topic or theme of the session; (viii) the key learning outcomes for each session; (ix) whether these outcomes were measured (and how if applicable); (x) whether the session was evaluated (and how if applicable); (xi) whether the session would continue to run in the following academic year and if so whether any changes were to be made to the session. Respondents were also given the opportunity to make any other comments they deemed appropriate to each session. At the end of each page respondents were asked if they conducted ‘any other IPE sessions’, if they did they were transferred to a duplicate page which asked the same questions about each subsequent IPE session they conducted.

Section C comprised one open qualitative question to determine if any new sessions were to be initiated in the coming 2015/16 academic year and if so, what healthcare students were involved, the years each profession were in, the topic and location of the session, whether learning outcomes would be assessed and whether sessions would be evaluated.

The final section, section D, enabled respondents to make any further comments and provide their details if they would like to be contacted about the results of the study.

3.2.5. Piloting the questionnaire

Once the initial questionnaire was completed, it was piloted by three academic staff within the Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (CSPPS). The staff members completed and critiqued the questionnaire for general flow and face validity where applicable (Babbie, 2015d), and also advised that an estimate completion time of 15 minutes was reasonable based on the IPE number conducted at CSPPS, however this may have been longer in schools with more sessions than CSPPS.

3.2.6. Data input

Once a respondent had completed the online Google Docs questionnaire, data was exported and transferred into Microsoft Excel 2011 (version 14.7.2) for analysis.

3.2.7. Data analysis

Following data transfer into Microsoft Excel 2011, closed question answers were quantitatively compiled to determine overall frequency statistics. Where qualitative responses were provided (for example when explaining learning outcomes of sessions) deductive thematic analysis was used to identify the relevant information within each text. This information was then coded and grouped appropriately, thus enabling quantification of these points (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Kumar, 2014). Responses in sections A-C of the questionnaire were analysed in this manner as each question purposefully aimed to deduce

certain information. In order to highlight the relevance of learning outcomes to pharmacy and other HCPs this data was additionally categorised into the seven outcome/standards which were present in all of the five largest healthcare professional regulators (GPhC, GMC – General Medical Council, GDC – General Dental Council, NMC – Nurse and Midwifery Council and HCPC – Health and care Professions Council) as identified by Steven et al. (2017). Due to the small number of additional free text comments provided in section D this data was presented however direct analysis was unwarranted.