Teaching Interprofessional Leadership Excellence to Advanced Practice Nursing Students

Background: To strengthen holistic health care delivery, influential interprofessional (IP) leadership skills are crucial for nurse practitioners (NPs) working within typical disease-focused practice settings. To build competencies, an IP leadership learning protocol (ILLP) was developed using an evidence-informed conflict resolution self-study and patient-care video conference (PCVC) for family NP students, which was later adapted for psychiatric mental health (PMH) NP students and measured effectiveness. Method: Flipped-classroom initial self-study of IP leadership strategies and relevant clinical considerations culminated in applying this learning within the PCVC by role-playing deliberately contrived adversarial IP roles with a faculty facilitator intermittently designating students to act as the IP leader. Results: Immediately following the video conference, students completed a validated leadership self-efficacy (LSE) tool and a written evaluation. LSE scores improved significantly (p < .01), and short-answer themes showed positive studentperceived learning value. Conclusion: A well-designed virtual ILLP is effective for improving LSE in NP students.