Clinical Implementation Research With Health Professional Students: Partnering for Health Behavior Change

Abstract

Implementing existing knowledge and research about health behavior change with community-dwelling individuals requires engagement and partnering between patients and health professionals. Participation in clinical implementation research provides important learning opportunities for health professional students and faculty. Key to their experience is planning community-based health programs and then observing how that practice is actually adopted, implemented, and sustained in the real world by patients. This case study provides insight into challenges and opportunities when conducting clinical implementation research with advanced undergraduate health professional students. Students must understand their role in creating the environment for change to occur. In this case study, nursing students actively partnered with community-dwelling individuals to identify a realistic health behavior change, encourage adoption, measure progress and revise goals, and support maintenance of the change. Students were also integral in data collection and assisting patients to complete clinical research tools (action plans, Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form, [DES-SF]). Training for students addressed intervention fidelity in applying tools and partnering with patients to develop action plans during home visitation, where there can be many distractions. Clear processes for entering and tracking research data at each site with centralized oversight was used to guide common implementation and avoid missing data, which is especially important when disseminating results to funding agencies and writing for publication. Participant and student satisfaction comments rated each clinical group's experience. Experiences and lessons learned have relevance for other clinical implementation research projects for all levels and disciplines of health professions students.

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