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Seaton J1, Jones A1, Johnston C2, Francis K1
1James Cook University, College of Healthcare Sciences, Townsville, Australia, 2University of Newcastle, School of Health Sciences, Callaghan, Australia
Background: Interprofessional collaboration is a complex and dynamic phenomenon defined by the relationships and interactions that occur between health professionals from diverse backgrounds to provide holistic patient care. Interprofessional collaboration is considered essential in the management of chronic disease. As the first point of contact, primary health care plays a key role in preventing, delaying and reducing the progression of chronic disease. Due to their high and complex needs, management of patients with chronic illness is delivered by multiple primary health care professionals. While the majority of patients access primary health care through a general practitioner, other primary health care providers include allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and psychologists. However, a critical shortage of general practitioners is of international concern to the primary health care workforce and allied health professionals have been described as critical to the success of primary health care. Allied health professionals are encouraged to collaborate with other primary health care providers to deliver more effective patient care. The features of interprofessional collaboration, as perceived by allied health professionals working in primary health care, are largely unknown. It is unclear if allied health professionals consider interprofessional collaboration to be part of their role in primary health care, or whether their perceptions of interprofessional collaboration align with commonly found definitions.
Purpose: To explore allied health professionals' attitudes towards, and perceptions of, interprofessional collaboration in primary health care.
Methods: An integrative review was undertaken. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using three electronic databases: CINAHL, Medline and Scopus. A manual search of the Journal of Interprofessional Care was also performed. Allied health was defined as disciplines who were listed by both the Allied Health Professions Australia and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. These disciplines comprised: chiropractic, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathy, physiotherapy, podiatry and psychology. Multiple keyword combinations were used in the search strategy. All relevant studies were subsequently appraised for rigour and quality.
Results: Twelve studies conducted in six different countries met the inclusion criteria. Thematic analysis identified two major themes - (1) attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration and (2) factors influencing interprofessional collaboration. Each major theme was categorised into several subthemes. Emergent subthemes were as follows: shared philosophy, roles and responsibilities, team composition, communication, respect and trust, physical environment, power and hierarchy and financial considerations.
Conclusion(s): Most allied health professionals perceive themselves as members of the primary health care team. The extent to which allied health professionals perceive other disciplines to be part of the team was often dependent on task interdependency. Opportunity for brief and frequent informal communication appeared to be essential for interprofessional collaboration to occur and allied health professionals working in close proximity to other providers had more regular interactions than those who were geographically isolated.
Implications: This review has identified diverse key elements related to interprofessional collaboration in primary health care, as perceived by allied health professionals. Further research should focus on employing direct observational methods to determine whether allied health professionals' perceptions of interprofessional collaboration compare with their actual interactions in the primary health care setting.
Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration, Primary health care, Allied health
Funding acknowledgements: No financial or material support of any kind was received for the work described in this abstract.
Purpose: To explore allied health professionals' attitudes towards, and perceptions of, interprofessional collaboration in primary health care.
Methods: An integrative review was undertaken. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using three electronic databases: CINAHL, Medline and Scopus. A manual search of the Journal of Interprofessional Care was also performed. Allied health was defined as disciplines who were listed by both the Allied Health Professions Australia and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. These disciplines comprised: chiropractic, occupational therapy, optometry, osteopathy, physiotherapy, podiatry and psychology. Multiple keyword combinations were used in the search strategy. All relevant studies were subsequently appraised for rigour and quality.
Results: Twelve studies conducted in six different countries met the inclusion criteria. Thematic analysis identified two major themes - (1) attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration and (2) factors influencing interprofessional collaboration. Each major theme was categorised into several subthemes. Emergent subthemes were as follows: shared philosophy, roles and responsibilities, team composition, communication, respect and trust, physical environment, power and hierarchy and financial considerations.
Conclusion(s): Most allied health professionals perceive themselves as members of the primary health care team. The extent to which allied health professionals perceive other disciplines to be part of the team was often dependent on task interdependency. Opportunity for brief and frequent informal communication appeared to be essential for interprofessional collaboration to occur and allied health professionals working in close proximity to other providers had more regular interactions than those who were geographically isolated.
Implications: This review has identified diverse key elements related to interprofessional collaboration in primary health care, as perceived by allied health professionals. Further research should focus on employing direct observational methods to determine whether allied health professionals' perceptions of interprofessional collaboration compare with their actual interactions in the primary health care setting.
Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration, Primary health care, Allied health
Funding acknowledgements: No financial or material support of any kind was received for the work described in this abstract.
Topic: Primary health care; Professional practice: other
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: James Cook University
Ethics committee: Human Research Ethics Committee
Reason not required: No new data from was collected from human subjects or participants in writing this literature review.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
