The primary objective of this research was to assess the benefits of an interprofessional education (IPE) workshop designed to improve the knowledge, understanding, and confidence of students from 11 healthcare disciplines to care for people with dementia and their families. This was an expansion from a previous educational workshop initiative that had incorporated just three disciplines.

Background Dementia is one of the greatest health and social care challenges of our time1. Approximately 50 million people worldwide live with dementia, and this number is projected to rise to 152 million by 20502. Between 25% and 40% of older people admitted to hospitals are diagnosed with dementia, therefore healthcare professionals must be prepared to meet the needs of this growing population3. International policy documents support the need to develop interprofessional education (IPE) to enhance and support collaborative dementia care in the community. Education...

Results There were 152 students in attendance at the workshop, and 102 students participated in completing the pre-and post-workshop surveys. Overall student performance on knowledge questions using the 30-item Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale (AKDS)8 was good with overall mean knowledge scores of 23.4 pre-workshop indicating that 78% of answers were correct. An increase to a mean score of 24.8 post-workshop did not demonstrate any statistically significant difference. This may be reflective of the latter stage that the students were at in their respective programmes. It...

Conclusion The workshop led to an increase in students' awareness and understanding of the role of other healthcare professionals in providing care for a person with dementia and improved their confidence levels in working with people with dementia. The varied perspectives including that of the patient advocate enhancing the focus on patient-centred care. This study supports findings of the beneficial effect of such collaborative learning seen in previous research5 and students have reported improved confidence levels in tasks that will assist them in becoming practice-ready...

N. Moore: Nothing to disclose T. Foley: Nothing to disclose T. O'Sullivan: Nothing to disclose M. F. F. McEntee: Nothing to disclose R. Young: Nothing to disclose I. Hartigan: Nothing to disclose T. O'Rourke: Nothing to disclose A. Fleming: Nothing to disclose A. Cole: Nothing to disclose

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