Effects of interprofessional education on teamwork and on knowledge chronic conditions management

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the effect of interprofessional education on the climate of Primary Health Care teams and on the acquisition of knowledge about management of chronic non-communicable diseases. METHOD: Quasi-experimental study of interprofessional education intervention. Seventeen Primary Health Care teams (95 professionals) participated in the study, of which nine teams (50 professionals) composed the intervention group and eight teams (45 participants) composed the control group. The team climate inventory scale and a questionnaire on knowledge about management of chronic conditions in Primary Health Care were applied before and after intervention. Type I error was fixed as statistically significant (p<0.05). RESULTS: In the analysis of knowledge about management of chronic conditions, the teams that participated in the interprofessional education intervention presented higher mean post-intervention increase than the teams of the control group (p < 0.001). However, in the analysis of both groups, there was no significant variation in the teamwork climate scores (0.061). CONCLUSION: The short interprofessional education intervention carried out during team meetings resulted in improved apprehension of specific knowledge on chronic conditions. However, the short intervention presented no significant impacts on teamwork climate.