Critical Care Nurse’ Perspectives Toward Interprofessional Collaboration: Key Challenges and Best Practices for Moving Forward

Background: The positive outcomes for critically ill patients rely on effective interprofessional collaboration (IPC), which depends on the collective expertise and skill of the critical care team (CCT) working cohesively and collaboratively to provide patients with the best chance of high-quality, safe care for survival. The current study aimed to (1) Determine the challenges to interprofessional collaboration in the critical care units as perceived by nurses, and (2) Explore the best practices suggested by nurses for improving interprofessional collaboration. Methods: A mixed study design was employed to collect the data from 125 nurses who worked in the three critical care medicine units at the main university hospital. Results: Quantitative data were analyzed using a t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation, and 𝑝 < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. The results demonstrated that a substantial difference between nurses who graduated from nursing faculties and hold baccalaureate degrees and nurses who graduated from nursing institutions and hold diploma degrees in agreement and satisfaction with the relations and collaboration with the physicians. Additionally, a significant correlation was seen between the level of nurses’ education and the limited time caused by heavy workloads and the nurses’ perspectives toward their relations with physicians. A content analysis of the nurses’ texts revealed that five themes have emerged as nurses’ suggestions to keep up the best practices for moving forward in the nurse-physician collaboration: changing the physician’s attitude toward the nurses, improving communication skills, role clarification, interprofessional conflict resolution, and support and motivation. Conclusions: On one hand, unlike diploma nurses, nurses with baccalaureate degrees reported disagreement with the level of collaboration between nurses and physicians, especially in the statements of the physicians’ dominance of the decision, their position at the top of the hierarchy, consideration of the nurses as followers not as colleagues, and the power of authority that the physicians have over nurses (superior-subordinate relationships). On the other hand, feelings of inferiority and inequality were reported by the nurses as a response to the open-ended question.