Pelvic Floor Health Class

Research duration:

Phase 1: 1.9.2023 to 31.1.2024
Phase 2: 1.2.2025 to 31.7.2025

Everyday working life in the healthcare sector requires effective collaboration between different professional groups in many areas. Knowledge of the area of responsibility, competence and professional legal framework of the respective neighbouring professional groups is crucial for this. In order to do justice to this interprofessional approach in the training of future professionals, an interprofessional course on pelvic floor health around birth was included in the curricula of the bachelor's degree programmes in Midwifery and Physiotherapy at FH Campus Wien, as midwives and physiotherapists have an overlap of clients and responsibilities in their professional practice. This represents an innovative approach to promoting interprofessional collaboration in the healthcare sector. In addition to deepening the respective professional competences, the course promotes and develops openness for interprofessional interactions and specific social competences, such as communication and teamwork skills.

The aim of the project is to evaluate the newly designed interprofessional course by students from both professional groups. The focus is on recording the general evaluation of the course, questions on interprofessionality and the students' assessment of possible future interprofessional courses. The aim is to expand the potential for interdisciplinary, future-orientated training and to make sensible use of the benefits.

Methodology: After reviewing existing questionnaires in similar studies, we developed our own structured questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative items. Following validation in the pilot phase, the questionnaire will be submitted to the ethics committee of FH Campus Wien. A digital version of this questionnaire will be used to collect data from participants in the second round of the course in the summer semester of 2025. The data will be analysed using descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis.