Interprofessional communication and user participation in the Family Health Strategy

Abstract

This study deals with collaborative competencies to strengthen teamwork and interprofessional collaboration in Primary Health Care services, supported by the framework of the health work process, interprofessional work and competencies. Its objective is to understand the conceptions and experiences of professionals from the Family Health Strategy teams regarding the core collaborative competencies: interprofessional communication and patient-centered care. This is an exploratory and interpretative qualitative study. A secondary database was used, with 34 interviews conducted with professionals from the teams of three health units located in two municipalities. Thematic content analysis was adopted, with support by the WebQDA software. The findings show the professionals’ understanding of collaborative competencies as complementary and as impossible to being treated independently. Interprofessional communication is recognized as a focus on meeting the user’s health needs, limited by unsatisfactory working conditions. Patient-centered care appears weak, since the sense of user participation prevails as a transfer of responsibility for their care to professionals and in a minority way, as sharing the construction of the care plan.