Collaboration Between Health Professionals in the Era of Antiretroviral Therapy

Abstract

After antiretroviral therapy (ART) became available in South Africa, persons living with HIV (PLWH) began to survive, but they often experienced disability as a result of their illness and treatments. Management of HIV is more often successful with a holistic approach including medicine, rehabilitation, and social care. There is limited literature on collaborations between nurses and allied health professionals in the rehabilitation of PLWH, with no documentation of partnerships between nurses and physiotherapists in high-HIV burdened countries. We investigated the collaboration between nurses and physiotherapists in the rehabilitation of PLWH. We conducted two focus groups with experienced nurses at two residential facilities for PLWH in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, using Van Manen's pedagogy on interpretive phenomenology as the conceptual framework. Three barriers to collaboration were found: role governance, environmental structure, and organizational variance. Education and in-service programs and workshops were suggested to curb the divide.

Acute burns of the hands – physiotherapy perspective

“…This occurs when health professionals from different disciplines learn about each other specific roles in the care of the patient and has been shown to enhance inter-professional practice amongst health care professionals 26 . This was further supported by Chetty et al in 2012 who emphasised that awareness and understanding into the scope of practice of the various members of the team is a means of promoting collaboration and holistic support 32 . Although implementation of inter-professional practice may pave a way forward for health professionals this transformation is also dependent on environmental factors of the institutions such as the availability of resources, basic infrastructure, workloads and time constraints which pose a challenge to effective and efficient service delivery 32 .…”

Attitudes Toward HIV Among Health Professions Students in the Southeastern United States: Implications for Interprofessional Education

“…Furthermore, healthcare providers' attitudes toward HIV and PLWH warrant renewed research attention given the emergence of integrated care for PLWH (e.g., Bottonari & Stepleman, 2010;Chetty & Maharaj, 2013;Zaller, Gillani, & Rich, 2007). While multidisciplinary treatment teams are designed to improve healthcare for PLWH, differences in professional cultures, attitudes, and beliefs between…”

“…As the treatment of HIV moves toward an integrated model of care (e.g., Bottonari & Stepleman, 2010;Chetty & Maharaj, 2013;Zaller et al, 2007), it is becoming increasingly important for providers to work collaboratively to arrive at patient-centered decisions and treatment plans. However, because individual differences in providers' training, attitudes, and personal characteristics can interfere with collaboration (Hall, 2005), addressing ways to look beyond these similarities at the pre-licensure level may alleviate problems with multidisciplinary teamwork (Oandasan & Reeves, 2005).…”

The need for a Rehabilitation Model to address the disparities of public healthcare for people living with HIV in South Africa

“…Rehabilitation professionals in Africa (Chetty & Maharaj 2013; Cobbing et al 2013; Hanass-Hancock et al 2012; Hughes et al 2004; Jelsma et al 2002) argue that there is a need for rehabilitation within health care systems to offer a continuum of coordinated, multi-levelled, multi-discipline and evidence-based service to address the dynamic nature of the disease. However, there has been no consensus related to the extent to which rehabilitation approaches or strategies have been effectively integrated into HIV management in the general context of health nor has there been discussion related to what strategies or approaches to rehabilitation would be more feasible in a holistic model of HIV care in a country like South Africa (Cobbing, Hanass-Hancock & Deane 2014).…”