Scand J Caring Sci; 2017; 31; 547-553 Health professionals perceive teamwork with relatives as an obstacle in their daily work -a focus group interview Background: Health professionals must often balance between different rationalities within the hospital organisation. Having adequate time with patients, shorter waiting time and the ability to greater professional autonomy have been shown to help provide a higher quality of care. Empathy and sympathy appear to be crucial components for the health professionals and their relationship to patients. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore health professionals' experiences of relatives to critically ill patients in order to identify aspects that may facilitate a better understanding of this teamwork. Methods: The study was descriptive and exploratory and had a qualitative design with a phenomenological/ hermeneutic orientation for the interviews. Focus group was the chosen methodology. The study comprised 19 health professionals in four focus groups. Results: Two themes emerged from the interviews: the hospital culture does not integrate relatives, and health professionals felt that relatives took their resources and saw them as an obstacle in their daily work. Conclusion and implications for practice: Health professionals felt divided between the system and the individual sphere, which makes it difficult for them to integrate relatives more and see them as participants in a natural teamwork for the benefit of the patient.Keywords: quality study, focus group interview, relatives, health professionals, teamwork, organisational resources.
Submitted 4 February 2016, Accepted 7 June 2016
BackgroundThe changes in the public healthcare system are often driven by several factors such as economy and technological progress. The increased access to information and the acknowledgement of consumers' rights is a high priority. Therefore, it could be argued that the public healthcare system of today must fulfil two goals at the same time, their social responsibility and their financial goals (1). The public healthcare system is described as a bureaucracy, which can be understood as a system building on another system, which can lead to a disconnection between different organisational levels. This disconnection is often seen between management and clinic and is often described as a hierarchy, where the abstractions of management seem to disconnect from what is actually happening on the floor (1).Health professionals are guided by public policies and not so often on the norms of professionals (2). Instead of the healthcare system building upon the enthusiasm of a few, it builds on the tolerance of many. The discrepancy between how the organisation is presented and the actual results may explain why many health professionals feel discontented. The demands of caring for patients within constraints of diminished organisational resources and the fact that a hospital ward can have little freedom to act on their own will often lead to frustration among health professionals (3). Heal...