Abstract
IntroductionFor physicians and nurses, teamwork involves a set of communication and social skills, and specific training in interdisciplinary work in order to be able to work together cooperatively, sharing responsibilities, solving problems, and making decisions to carry out actions centered on patients’ care. Recent studies demonstrate that in the absence of targeted interdisciplinary educational programs, the development of teamwork abilities is sensitive to the influence of the dominant work environment. The purpose of this study was to characterize the role that environmental and individual factors play in the development of teamwork in environments with a dominant hierarchical work model.MethodsQuestionnaires were distributed to 1,880 undergraduate students (980 medicine students and 900 nursing students) from three universities of Cusco city (Peru). The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician–Nurse Collaboration was used as the main variable. The Jefferson Scales of Empathy and Lifelong Learning, the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults, the Scale of Life Satisfaction, sex, discipline, age, and academic semester were used as explanatory variables. After calculating internal reliability and normality of the main measures, descriptive, comparative, and correlation analyses were performed to determine variables influencing the teamwork score.ResultsA total of 1,518 (81%) surveys were returned fully completed. Adequate reliability was confirmed in all instruments. In the sample, nursing students showed greater inter-professional collaborative abilities than medicine students (p < 0.001). This attitudinal gap was higher in advanced semesters. A three-way ANOVA indicated differences in teamwork were associated with discipline (p < 0.001), sex (p < 0.01), and university (p < 0.001). However, main effects were associated only with discipline (ηp2 = 0.14). Teamwork showed an inverse correlation with loneliness (ρ = −0.28; p < 0.001) and a positive correlation with empathy (ρ = + 0.49; p < 0.001) and lifelong learning (ρ = + 0.48; p < 0.001). Teamwork positively correlated with life satisfaction only in the medicine student group (ρ = + 0.15; p < 0.001).ConclusionThese findings bring new evidence to support the main effect that social environments, in the absence of targeted interdisciplinary educational programs, play in the development of teamwork.
Highlights
For physicians and nurses, teamwork involves a set of communication and social skills, and specific training in interdisciplinary work in order to be able to work together cooperatively, sharing responsibilities, solving problems, and making decisions to carry out actions centered on patients’ care
801 students corresponded to one university (580 in the faculty of medicine and 221 in the faculty of nursing), and the other 253 were nursing students of the other private university
The findings presented confirm the main hypothesis of this study that in the absence of a targeted interdisciplinary educational program, the development of teamwork abilities in undergraduate medical and nursing students can be limited, probably influenced by the socio-cultural environment
Summary
Teamwork involves a set of communication and social skills, and specific training in interdisciplinary work in order to be able to work together cooperatively, sharing responsibilities, solving problems, and making decisions to carry out actions centered on patients’ care. Especially in medicine and nursing, “professionalism refers to the set of skills and values that characterizes the essence of humanism of professionals who are in charge of patients’ healthcare” (Vivanco and DelgadoBolton, 2015) This concept includes a systematic distribution of professional qualities and skills that compose the quintessence of their professional conduct irrespective of their geographical, social, or cultural differences. Teamwork ability involves communication and social skills and specific training on interdisciplinary work in order to be able to work together cooperatively, sharing responsibilities, solving problems, and making decisions to carry out actions centered on patients’ care (Hojat et al, 1999) As stated by the World Health Organization [WHO] (2010), a positive inter-professional collaborative work, called “teamwork,” is described as a capability of “multiple healthcare workers from different professional backgrounds to provide comprehensive services by working with patients, their families, their professional careers, and the community, in order to deliver the highest quality of healthcare across settings.” For physicians and nurses, teamwork ability involves communication and social skills and specific training on interdisciplinary work in order to be able to work together cooperatively, sharing responsibilities, solving problems, and making decisions to carry out actions centered on patients’ care (Hojat et al, 1999)
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