Nurse-Physician Collaboration: A Comparison of Attitudes of Nurses and Physicians in Nigerian Tertiary Hospital Care Settings

Abstract

Background: Good nurse-physician collaboration is an invaluable asset of any health care service. Nursing and medicine are inseparably intertwined in hospital care. Good hospital care depends on the physician's skill in diagnosis and treatment as well as upon nurses' continuous observation and their skill in communicating the right information to the right professional partners. The subject matter of nurse-physician collaboration in hospital care setting is an important asset every health care manager, hospital administrator, policy maker and any reason-able government would want to embrace.

Methods: This was a comparative cross sectional study of Physicians and Nurses' attitude to nurse-physician collaboration in Nigerian tertiary hospital care setting. This study utilized a semi structured questionnaire for data collection in assessing Nurses and Physicians' attitudes to nurse-physician collaboration.

Results: The findings revealed that registered Nurses had statistical higher total mean positive attitude score to nurse-physician collaboration 63.4 compared with Physicians 58.5 (P<0.0001). The scores that obviates the phenomenon of 'dominance', 'autonomy' were significantly higher for nurses; 15.8 and 13.7 and compared with physicians; 13.7 and 11.9 respectively P<0.0001 and P<0.005. Reciprocal respect scores was statistically higher for nurses (26.8) compared with Physicians (24.7) P<0.0001. Both Nurses and Physicians scores of perception of negative impact of poor nurse-physician collaboration and scores for remedy ie acceptance of need to include nurse-physician collaboration in both professional academic curricular were compared. There was no statistical difference when Nurses' mean perception score 3.8 was compared with Physicians' mean perception score 4.0 (P < 0.164). There was however significant difference when mean 'remedy' score for Nurses 4.5 compared with Physicians' 4.2 (p<0.03).

Conclusion: Physicians and nurses express positive attitude toward nurse-physician collaboration but nurses' attitude was found to be significantly better. Although both group admitted the negative impact of poor nurse-physician collaboration. Nurses were found to be more favorably disposed toward inclusion of nurse-physician collaboration in nursing and medicine training curricular. There is need to incorporate inter-professional education into the training of our health workers so that they enter into workplace as a member of the collabora-tive practice team. We acknowledge the time and resource constraint in this study hence, larger studies and from other geopolitical zones in the country are needed.