Initiatives for “Physical Assessment Seminar <Basic Course>” assuming the interprofessional work: changes in participant comprehension levels for physical assessment

Abstract

Recently, recurrent education is recommended to deal with the super aging population. Pharmacists are also required to life-long learning to respond to interprofessional work. A course entitled “Physical Assessment Seminar <Basic Course>” that focused on interprofessional work was held at Kyoto Pharmaceutical University. In this study, we introduced the educational content of the seminar and evaluated the changes in participant comprehension levels via pre and postquestionnaires. The survey comprised self-assessments provided by 103 participants and was focused on the individual’s comprehension of physical assessments both before and after the seminar experience. Upon evaluation before the seminar, we found that individuals participating in other existing seminars had considerably higher levels of comprehension and understanding of physical assessment than those who did not participate in other existing seminars. In contrast, we observed no significant differences between these groups upon evaluation after the seminar. Many participants noted that they gained an improved understanding of physical assessment and its association with interprofessional activities after participation in the seminar. Overall, our results suggest that participation in this seminar had a significant educational effect in terms of the comprehension of the role of physical assessments and the critical nature of interprofessional work.