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Refugees may arrive to their destination country with complex mental and physical health challenges. However, healthcare providers often are unprepared to manage refugees' health-related challenges. An interprofessional team of faculty developed an interprofessional education (IPE) training to help prepare health professions students to address refugees' health needs. This paper describes the development and assessment of the training. A three-hour case-based training was created with the following format: online pre-assessment; introduction; radio story about the experience of local refugees; pre-recorded presentation about healthcare in a detention facility; interprofessional group work in small teams; large group discussion; profession-specific group reflections; and online post-assessment. The training was implemented twice (across two successive years), and an investigation of the study participants' self-perceived learning was completed after each training. In the first training, 62 participants (representing medicine, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, and social work) completed the assessments. In the second training, 151 participants (representing medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, public health, and social work) completed the assessments. In each study, a statistically significant increase in each of four outcome variables was found at post-assessment. The findings of each study suggested that perceived learning about refugees' health and health care improved after participation in a three-hour IPE training. J Allied Health 2020; 49(3):e131-e138.
THE UNITED NATIONS High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that a record-high of 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced globally in 2018.1
Of the people displaced, 41.3 million were categorized by the UNHCR as "internally displaced people," meaning that they were forced to leave their home but not their country. Additionally, the UNHCR reported that 25.9 million were refugees who fled their home country. Another 3.5 million individuals forcibly fled their home country and applied for legal protection (asylum) and were categorized as "asylum-seekers."1 For the purposes of this paper, the term refugee will encompass both refugees and asylum-seekers.
Refugees face many obstacles to maintaining their health before, during, and after their migration.1-3 They are likely to have experienced violence.1,2 The exposure to violence may lead to trauma, contributing to mental and physical problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, and somatization.1,2 After arriving to their destination country, refugees often are unable to access health care due to language barriers, lack of health insurance,...