• Cherri Hobgood, Gwen Sherwood, Karen Frush, David Hollar, Laura Maynard, Beverly Foster, Susan Sawning, Donald Woodyard, Carol Durham, Melanie Wright, Jeffrey Taekman, and Interprofessional Patient Safety Education Collaborative.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, UNC School of Medicine, CB 7594, UNC Hospitals, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. hobgood@med.unc.edu
• Qual Saf Health Care. 2010 Dec 1; 19 (6): e25.

ObjectivesThe authors conducted a randomised controlled trial of four pedagogical methods commonly used to deliver teamwork training and measured the effects of each method on the acquisition of student teamwork knowledge, skills, and attitudes.MethodsThe authors recruited 203 senior nursing students and 235 fourth-year medical students (total N = 438) from two major universities for a 1-day interdisciplinary teamwork training course. All participants received a didactic lecture and then were randomly assigned to one of four educational methods didactic (control), audience response didactic, role play and human patient simulation. Student performance was assessed for teamwork attitudes, knowledge and skills using: (a) a 36-item teamwork attitudes instrument (CHIRP), (b) a 12-item teamwork knowledge test, (c) a 10-item standardised patient (SP) evaluation of student teamwork skills performance and (d) a 20-item modification of items from the Mayo High Performance Teamwork Scale (MHPTS).ResultsAll four cohorts demonstrated an improvement in attitudes (F(1,370) = 48.7, p = 0.001) and knowledge (F(1,353) = 87.3, p = 0.001) pre- to post-test. No educational modality appeared superior for attitude (F(3,370) = 0.325, p = 0.808) or knowledge (F(3,353) = 0.382, p = 0.766) acquisition. No modality demonstrated a significant change in teamwork skills (F(3,18) = 2.12, p = 0.134).ConclusionsEach of the four modalities demonstrated significantly improved teamwork knowledge and attitudes, but no modality was demonstrated to be superior. Institutions should feel free to utilise educational modalities, which are best supported by their resources to deliver interdisciplinary teamwork training.

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