Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Workforce Enhancement Issues and Strategies
Nursing-Physician Collaboration and Quality
Yvonne C. Shell, RN, MS, Primary Care/ Health Care Administration Student, Kaiser Permanente/Regis University, Littleton, CO, USA
Learning Objective #1: Identify the relationship of gender to perceptions of the professional nurse-physician relationship
Learning Objective #2: Identify eight themes that would support a collaborative nurse-physician relationship
Abstract This study was conducted to determine whether there is a correlation between collaboration and quality and the nurse-physician relationship. The research tool represents a mixed design using correlation analysis and qualitative methods. The survey sample yielded a .80 Cronbach’s alpha. T tests for equality of group means were analyzed by gender and profession. Gender reflected a significant difference between males and females in regards to nurses as collaborators and colleagues. Females (3.78 mean) agreed nurses should be viewed as collaborators and colleagues more than males (3.49 mean). Nurses (3.81 mean) also agreed more than physicians (3.54 mean) that they should be viewed as collaborators and colleagues. In relation to dominance, females (2.66 mean) agreed more than males (2.64 mean) that doctors are the dominant authority of all healthcare matters. Nurses also (2.67 mean) agreed more than doctors (2.37 mean) that physicians are the dominant authority. Disruptive behavior by physicians was witnessed and reported more by physicians (3.48 mean) than by nurses (3.07 mean). 472 or 89.7% of the participants strongly agreed that nurse-physician collaboration has positive effects on quality. The qualitative portion of the survey developed into eight themes that would support a collaborative nurse-physician relationship. The eight themes include: communication, respect, teamwork, meetings, patient care rounds, plan of care, collaboration and education. A measure of inter-rater agreement of 90.4% using Cohen’s Kappa was obtained. While there has much been written about unfavorable nurse-physician relationships, this survey reflects the differences between the perceptions of the relationships are primarily due to gender and not profession.

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