Background and aim of the work: Patient involvement in interprofessional education is a novel approach to building collaborative and empathic skills in students. However, this area of teaching is lacking in
rigorous studies. The project aimed to evaluate whether an interprofessional education intervention in partnership with patient educators (IPE-PE) would increase readiness for interprofessional learning and empathy
in health sciences students. Methods: This is the report of a didactic innovation project. Participants included
310 undergraduate health sciences students who took part in an IPE-PE intervention. Data were collected
before and after the training, using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) and the
Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Student version ( JSE-HPS). Only at the end of the intervention, a data collection form was administered to explore the value of the patient educator in the training and
to investigate the socio-demographic variables. Results: The mean age of participants was 21±3.2 SD years and
76% were female. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed significant changes from before to after the IPE-PE
in the RIPLS total score (m=42.7±5.8 SD vs 44.62±5.9 SD, z=-4.168, P<0.001) and in the JSE-HPS total
score (m=112.7±12.5 SD vs 116.03±12.8 SD, z=-4.052, P<0.001). Conclusions: Our students reported that
IPE-PE had helped them to become more effective healthcare team members, to think positively about other
professionals, and to gain an empathic understanding of the perspective of the person being cared for. The
results of the project confirm that the intervention promoted the development of empathy, fostering a better
understanding of the patient-centred perspective
