Viewpoint of Nurses on Inter-professional Relationship between Nurses and Doctors

Previous studies have shown lack of appropriate inter-professional relationships between nurses and doctors and its negative impact on quality of provided care. This study aimed to determine nurse's attitudes on professional relationships between doctors and nurses. Methods & Materials: In this cross-sectional study, 228 nurses were selected from the internal-surgical and intensive care units of educational hospitals in Zanjan. Data were collected through the Jefferson scale of attitude toward physician- nurse collaboration. Descriptive (mean, median, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t-test, ANOVA) were used to analyze data in the SPSS version 16. The situation of the inter-professional relationship between nurses and doctors was “high”. The maximum score belonged to the "care versus curing"; and the lowest score belonged to the "medical authority". There was a significant relationship between the mean score of the inter-professional relationship with nurses’ employment status (r=0.69, P<0.01). Perspectives of nurses on nurse-doctor relationship was high. Efforts should be made to achieve the ideal situation by paying more attention to nurse's professional roles and their autonomy, including inter-professional relationship subjects in Medicine and Nursing educational curriculum and creating team spirit between nurses and doctors.