Improving Healthcare in South Texas Rural Communities: An Interprofessional Initiative for Primary Care Dental and Medical Residents

Objective: To enhance primary care dentistry and medicine residents’ didactic knowledge, communication skills to address patient's healthcare needs, and collaboration among healthcare professionals, while increasing confidence in integrating primary care skills into their clinical practice. Methods: An Interprofessional Education workshop was organized to enhance didactic knowledge and learning of 42 primary care dentistry (PCD) and family and community medicine (FCM) residents on topics including addressing facial and dental trauma in adults, managing patients with alcohol use and abuse, pain control and prescription opioid use in dentistry, and opioid use disorder and treatment. An online survey was administered before and after the workshop to assess changes in knowledge, confidence, and future intentions to incorporate targeted primary care skills learned during the workshop into clinical practice and to elicit residents’ perceptions of workshop quality. Overall scale means were assessed by chi-square tests for knowledge scales and analysis of variance for confidence and career intentions scales, significance levels were set at 0.05. Results: Pre-workshop assessments were completed by all attendees while post assessments received a response rate of 83.3%. Both PCD and FCM residents reported an increase in their knowledge (p < 0.05) and confidence (p < 0.05) in providing care for patients with facial/dental trauma, identifying signs of opioid abuse, addressing alcohol abuse, and understanding the referral processes following the workshop. While an overall increase was noted regarding intentions to incorporate skills learned during the workshop into practice by the PCD (pre-course = 4.33, post-course = 4.42) and FCM (pre-course = 4.55, post-course = 4.73) residents, the differences were not statistically significant differences. Conclusions: The interprofessional education workshop for PCD and FCM residents enhanced their knowledge, confidence, and future intentions to incorporate primary care skills into clinical practice and improve patient outcomes.