Interprofessional clinical supervisor training

Background: The burden on clinicians in busy health care settings to provide teaching and supervision for students has grown as training numbers have increased, and to address this there are more short courses available to build competency, with many including multidisciplinary offerings; however, the efficacy of providing interprofessional training for clinical supervisors has not been adequately explored. Methods: Eight hundred and seventy participants self-reported their confidence, motivation and effectiveness as a clinical supervisor prior to and after their participation in interprofessional clinical supervisor training. Means and standard deviations were calculated and mean difference values were compared using t-tests or anova. The burden on clinicians ... to provide teaching and supervision for students has grown Results: The programme had the greatest impact on self-reported confidence (mean difference = 0.77), particularly among female participants, followed by self-reported effectiveness (mean difference = 0.67). Participants aged 60+ years (n = 28) reported less change in self-reported effectiveness (p < 0.039) and self-reported confidence (p < 0.000) compared with other age groups. Those individuals working primarily as educators reported less impact than those in clinician or manager/coordinator roles. The change in self-reported effectiveness was most significant (p = 0.014) for those who attended between four and six workshops. Discussion: Interprofessional clinical supervisor training provides opportunities for cross-profession dialogue that may highlight commonalities and differences, as well as offering the potential for shared problem solving. In addition, it may provide cost-effective, convenient training, which is important given that few clinicians are formally trained as educators and have busy schedules.