Exploration of interprofessional collaboration between nurses and the other health care professionals in a provincial hospital

Everyday problems encountered by health care personnel and the means of communication they employ for their resolution, constitute important factors of the interprofessional collaboration and smooth day-to-day running of an institution. AIM: The main aim of this study was to explore and record levels of cooperation and communication among health care professionals at a provincial hospital of Northern Greece. ΜΕΤΗΟD AND MATERIAL: A stratified sample of 83 health care professionals out of a population of 692, participated in the survey. Data were collected via a questionnaire consisting of 25 multiple choice questions which were concerning demographic data, co-operation and its dimensions, communication and workplace conflict, professionalism and ways of improving interprofessional communication. Data analysis was completed using descriptive and non-parametric statistics using the SPSS v.14 statistical package. RESULTS: 83 health care professionals completed the questionnaire. i) 51 were nurses, of whom, 27 assistant nurses, 19 doctors, 2 physiotherapists, 2 midwives and 9 students. 22,90% of them held a university degree, 37,34% had a technical college degree and the remaining 39,75% had graduated from comprehension nursing school. 84,32% of the sample considered interprofessional cooperation as working together with people of different specialty in the same field. Commonest reasons for poor communication were heavy workload (86,74%) and personnel shortages (77,09%). The greatest advantage of interprofessional cooperation was the well-balanced duty allocation (96,73%), improved quality of care (86,73%) and faster completion of nursing tasks (82,83%). CONCLUSION: Poor communication due to the heavy workload, lack of personnel and the non-clarified responsibilities, create ever growing tensions among health care staff which dramatically affects interprofessional collaboration.

Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration, Professional conflict, Communication, Burnout