| In today’s health care arena, registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) must work
collaboratively as members of interprofessional practice teams. The Accreditation
Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics, therefore, mandates the inclusion of
interprofessional education (IPE) experiences for nutrition and dietetic students. IPE is
the exposure of students from disparate health professions to the types of cross-discipline
collaborations, communication, and teamwork required for interprofessional practice.
Despite the numerous proven benefits of IPE experiences, sustainability has been
problematic. This resulted in IPE being labeled as a wicked problem. Several researchers
suggest that a potential reason for the failures of IPE is the lack of evidence-based
approaches employed to develop these student experiences. The literature contains no
reports of evidence-based, instructional design-driven, IPE learning needs assessments
for nutrition and dietetics students. Of note, the phenomenon of wicked problems
parallels the ill-structured instructional design problem. This evaluation study employed
an evidence-based, instructional design, complex needs assessment protocol to gather the
IPE learning needs of nutrition and dietetic students. Based on those findings, the
potential impact of the 2024 masters-preparation requirement to become an RDN on
those learning needs was explored. The conceptual framework for the study was the
Participatory Action Research and Systems Evaluation for Interprofessional Education
(PARSE-IPE). PARSE-IPE marries concepts from three domains—participatory action
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research, instructional design, and interprofessional education. The findings provide
program directors and faculty with actionable recommendations for developing
sustainable IPE activities for dietetic students.
Key words: interprofessional education, interprofessional collaboration, dietitian,
dietetics, nutrition |