Abstract
ABSTRACTIn public health nursing interprofessional collaboration has become a goal, however, there is little clarity on the distribution of responsibility or approach to cooperation between the professional groups. The aim of the study was to explore public health nurses’ perceptions of their experiences related to interprofessional collaboration. A qualitative content analysis was carried out. An interview study with a purposeful sample of 23 Norwegian public health nurses (PHNs) was conducted. Data were analysed using semi-structured interviews to identify categories and themes of PHNs’ working lives. The data were classified into three major themes: institutionality: the institutional understanding of the professional roles; competence: clarifying jurisdictional borders, and recognition: professionals’ recognition of different roles. There needs to be a robust strategy in collaborative working that involves public health nurses among other professionals to avoid role overlap, interpersonal and interprofessional conflict and reduce the damaging threat or stress that comes with informal or ad hoc rules of engagement and status claiming by one profession over another.
Highlights
Today’s health challenges have led to more complex and specialized welfare services, and interprofessional collaboration is increasingly the method to meet the health care demands (Rice et al, 2010, Willumsen et al 2012)
The interview guide had a narrative approach, and experiences related to interprofessional collaboration were evoked by asking: Have you examples where other professionals have invited you to collaborate? Can you narrate about a situation where you took the initiative to collaborate with other professionals? Have you experienced situations where you have done working tasks when other professionals were more qualified? It was important to identify the experiences of public health nurses (PHNs) as fully as possible so the interview guide was not rigidly applied
The analysis revealed three themes that are related to each other: Institutionality; Competence; and Recognition
Summary
Today’s health challenges have led to more complex and specialized welfare services, and interprofessional collaboration is increasingly the method to meet the health care demands (Rice et al, 2010, Willumsen et al 2012). Each profession has a unique history and culture which can bring challenges into an effective interprofessional teamwork (Hall, 2005) This is the case with public health nursing. With more complex health challenges and increased demand for more specialized knowledge, professions such as midwives, psychologists, family therapists and school counsellors have entered the child health clinics and the school health services. Their tasks are partly overlapping and there is yet no clear distribution of responsibility between the professional groups. These PHNs were often perceived as the district doctorsright hand (Evang, 1976, p. 73)
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