The Attitude of Primary Health Care Workers to Interprofessional Collaboration in Primary Health Care

The aim: To investigate the attitude of primary health care (PHC) professionals towards teamwork and the attitude towards other members of the PHC team in Klaipėda. Objectives: 1) To explore the attitudes of PHC professionals towards teamwork. 2) To explore the attitudes of PHC professionals towards the roles of other PHC team members. 3) To explore the links between PHC professionals’ attitude to teamwork, each other’s roles, and sociodemographic indicators. Methods: A qualitative one-time questionnaire survey was conducted, consisting of 202 questions on attitudes towards teamwork (“Collaboration between Physicians and Nurses in Primary Health Care Teams”, “TeamSTEEPS Teamwork Attitude Questionnaire”) and attitudes towards the roles of PHC team members ("Role Perception Questionnaire"). The research was carried out in five PHC centers of Klaipeda city. The study involved 94 PHC professionals. The analysis of the data quantified the evaluation of the work environment of PHC specialists in the organization, the approach to teamwork, the evaluation of mutual roles and the correlations of these indicators with sociodemographic factors. The difference was considered significant when p 0.05). Conclusions: 1. PHC professionals had a positive attitude towards teamwork in their institutions and had a favourable attitude towards interprofessional collaboration. 2. The roles of other team members were only partially clear to PHC professionals, and the integration of the medical psychiatrist and social worker into the team seemed insufficient for PHC professionals. 3. Respondents working in private institutions, consulting fewer patients in an institution, and consulting more patients at home rated teamwork more favourably, but the attitude towards teamwork and the perception of the role of another PHC team member does not depend on the specialist's profession