Inter-professional nursing education and the roles of swift trust, interaction behaviors, and creativity: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey

Abstract

Background: Technological advances in medicine have generated an increase in the complexity of delivering quality medical care, which is a challenge to the healthcare system. Improving interdisciplinary teamwork among all healthcare staff is one approach to meeting these new challenges. Interdisciplinary teamwork can be improved through inter-professional teaching in nursing education, which provides instruction from at least two professions to teams of students from different specialties. Behaviors that foster collaboration and creativity in temporary organizations, such as teams, include swift trust, interactive behaviors, and team creativity. A better understanding of the relationships between these behaviors could help educators improve inter-professional education courses for nursing students.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 210 nursing students enrolled in inter-professional education courses with interdisciplinary teams that included design students. Three self-report questionnaires assessed nursing students' perceptions about swift trust, interactive behaviors, and creativity: 1) swift trust measured cognitive-based and affective-based domains; 2) interactive behaviors measured domains of constructive controversy, helping behaviors, and spontaneous communication; and 3) team creativity measured collaborative abilities. Scale scores range from 1 to 5; higher scores indicate more swift trust, better interactive behaviors, and greater team creativity. Analysis with Pearson's correlation coefficient and SPSS PROCESS macro was employed to test the mediating effects.

Findings: Cognitive-based swift trust was positively correlated with all three domains of interactive behaviors (p < .01); all domains of interactive behaviors were positively associated with team creativity (p < .01). Mediation models indicated that interactive behaviors mediated the relationship between cognitive-based swift trust and team creativity.

Discussion: Enhancing cognitive-based swift trust and interactive behaviors in interdisciplinary education for nursing students could promote team creativity. Faculty involved in interdisciplinary education courses for nurses should encourage interactive behaviors, which could increase cognitive-based swift trust among nursing students and improve collaboration and creativity.

Keywords: Creativity; Inter-professional; Interdisciplinary education; Mediating roles; Nursing students; Teamwork competency.