Aims: In 2008 the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology (CAPO) launched the first pan Canadian course within the Interprofessional Psychosocial Oncology Distance Education (IPODE) Project. The aim of the project was to create web-based, interprofessional learning opportunities for practicing health professionals and graduate students in 5 core disciplines: nursing, social work, psychology, spiritual care and medicine. One of the major health care professional groups providing initial psychosocial care is nurses. Their role is critical to patient/family experience and outcomes yet many nurses identify that they do not feel confident in providing psychosocial oncology care.  Opportunities to collaborate with other health professionals who may be able to support the nurse in her or his practice are often limited. In this presentation we discuss the nurse-related outcomes of one IPODE course, “Interprofessional Psychosocial Oncology: Introduction to Theory and Practice”.

Methods: The course objectives addressed psychosocial oncology content as well as interprofessional collaboration. Pre (T1) and post course surveys (T2 - immediately after the course) were administered. A non-parametric Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to compare changes in pre and post course interprofessional knowledge and attitudes. Narrative data were thematically analyzed.

Results: Analyses of the 53 pre-post surveys completed (49%) revealed the course was effective and significantly improved knowledge of other discipline’s roles, confidence, and satisfaction with interprofessional collaboration and with psychosocial oncology practice. Further insights were gained from narrative items and implications for oncology nurses with regard to retention and compassion fatigue were identified.

Conclusions: All disciplines appear to benefit from the IPE of this IPODE course but nurses benefitted more. Nurses appear to have fewer opportunities for IPE than some other disciplines. From our data there are indications that they suffer from professional isolation, which decreases job satisfaction and increases occupational stress. 

This abstract is planned as part of the symposium entitled, "Improving interprofessional collaboration for psychosocial oncology  - A view from three jurisdictions"