Evaluation of attitudes towards collaboration among nurses and physicians in the surgical units

ABSTRACT GÖZDE F. Evaluation Of Attitudes Towards Collaboration Among Nurses And Physicians In The Surgical Units, Namık Kemal University Institute of Health Sciences, Surgical Diseases Nursing Department, Master's Thesis, Tekirdağ 2018. This research has been planned descriptively to evaluate the attitudes of nurses and physicians working in surgical units towards nurse-physician collaboration. Sample population were chosen strafied sampling method and included 195 nurses and assistant surgeons of 3 university hospitals in Tekirdağ, Edirne and Çanakkale. Data were collected by using Personal Information Form prepared in accordance with literatür and The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration Scale (JSATPNC) developed by Hojat et al. in 1999 and adapted to Turkish by Yildirim et al. in 2005. The data was analysed using SPSS 24.0. Frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation, Kolmogorov Smirnov, Mann Whitney U, Spearman Chi Square, Fisher's Exact tests were used for data analysis. The score of the 'The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration Scale' for nurses (50,868±5,032) were significantly higher than physicians's score (48,697±4,654) (p=0,005<0,05). The 'Physician Nurse Colloboration' subscale score (16,876±1,702) of the women nurses were significantly higher than the male nurses's scores (15,438±2,128) (p=0,009<0,05). There were no statistically meaningful differences for the scores of ''Shared Education'', ''Nursing Role in Patient Care'', ''Accountability and Responsibility of Nurses'' subscales and for the total score of The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration Scale and scores of subscales according to job type and job experience (p>0,05). In nurse group, there were no statistically meaningful differences for the total score of The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration Scale and scores of ''Shared Education'', ''Nursing Role in Patient Care'', ''Accountability and Responsibility of Nurses'' subscales according to gender and working unit (p>0,05) also score of the 'Physician Nurse Colloboration' subscale according to working unit (p>0,05). In physician group, there were no statistically meaningful differences for the total score of The Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration Scale and scores of subscales according to gender (p>0,05). Nurses agreed with 'Nurses should be accountable to patients for the nursing care they provide', 'Physicians and nurses should contribute to decisions regarding the hospital discharge of patients', 'Nurses should be involved in making policy decisions concerning the hospital support services upon which their work depends', 'Interprofessional relationships between physicians and nurses should be included in their educational programs' items more than physicians. Physicians agreed with 'The primary function of the nurse is to carry out the physician's orders', 'Doctors should be the dominant authority in all health care matters' items more than nurses and there were significant differences between the nurses and the physicians (p<0,05). As a result, physician-nurse collaboration were suboptimal and need to improvement. Key words: Nursing, Surgical Units, Nurse - Physician Collaboration.