Fostering Interprofessional Collaboration in Addressing the Opioid Crisis: Integrating Naloxone Training with Healthcare Ethics and Equity Education

The opioid epidemic public health emergency, fraught with ethical and equity-related dilemmas requiring a multifaceted and collaborative approach, serves as an excellent framework for interprofessional education. At University of Colorado (CU), over 650 students from 6 health professions engage in the Interprofessional Healthcare Ethics & Health Equity (IPHE) course, exploring ethics and equity concepts through the journey of a patient who develops opioid dependency. We recognized the opportunity to offer co-curricular trainings to translate classroom learning to tangible skills students can implement in their community.Implementation: The CU Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education collaborated with campus and community organizations to offer interprofessional naloxone trainings following IPHE sessions. Participants learned to identify signs of opioid overdose, understand the mechanism of opioid reversal, and administer nasal naloxone. During 2023 sessions, participants also received naloxone kits. This experience, relevant to all health professions, directly reinforced course content by empowering students to address opioid overdoses now and in their future practice.Evaluation plan: Participants completed pre- and post-session surveys. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed.Outcome(s) and significance: 227 participants attended training and completed pre- and post-surveys. 73% were students; 89% of these were currently enrolled in IPHE. The proportion of participants who answered correctly about naloxone administration increased from pre- to post-session for all questions. Written comments were overwhelmingly positive, praising the format, content, presenters, and clinical utility of the training; many participants suggested offering this training to wider audiences.

Pairing hands-on naloxone training with interprofessional ethics and equity coursework strengthened students’ perception of the relevance of interprofessional education. Students gained appreciation of teamwork and collaboration in addressing community-level health issues and developed professional identity, becoming empowered early in their health professions education to act if they encounter an individual experiencing opioid overdose. These trainings are easily replicable across diverse institutions serving interprofessional audiences of students and/or clinicians.