Health residency programs in a university hospital: a potent training setting for interprofessional collaborative practice

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore residents’ experiences of interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) in a university hospital (UH) in São Paulo. We conducted a qualitative study with 14 residents undertaking uniprofessional and multiprofessional residency programs. The data were collected using critical incident technique-based semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis as proposed by Bardin. The UH was shown to be a potent training setting for ICP, promoting interactions between professionals from a range of areas and with varying levels of qualification. The quality of interactions between workers, residents and patients and their families was a determining factor for the development of ICP. Barriers to ICP included lack of organizational structure, excessive workload, weaknesses in the provision of permanent training in ICP and the predominance of the biomedical model of health care. Collaborative actions mediated by informal communication were the most common mechanism used for providing shared consultations.