Assessment of the attitude of nurses and physicians to the nurse-physician collaboration in the neonatal intensive care units of the selected teaching hospitals in Tehran

Optimal collaboration between members of the patient management team; especially physicians and nurses; can effectively prevent stress by creating an appropriate moral atmosphere that leads to the improvement of the quality of care.This study aimed to determine the attitude of nurses and physicians toward physician-nurse collaboration working in the neonatal intensive care units of the teaching hospitals in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

In this descriptive and analytical study, carried out in the neonatal intensive care units of the teaching hospitals in Tehran in 2018-2019, 234 physicians and nurses, selected by the available sampling method, participated in the study. Data were analyzed by SPSS V21 software with T-test, Pearson, and Anova.

The mean attitude score of nurses was 24.15 with a frequency percentage (40.25%) compared to physicians' 25.70 with a frequency percentage (42.80%) (P<0.05). The highest average score in the questionnaire was related to teamwork and information sharing among physicians and nurses, 6.75 and 8.73 respectively. A significant relationship was found between nurses' attitudes toward work experience, working hours, and liability insurance (P<0.05).

The attitude of the nurses and physicians about physician-nurse collaboration in this study was revealed to be unsatisfactory. One of the important reasons for the negative score of the attitude of nurses and physicians towards collaboration may be the point that sufficient importance is not given to the role of nurses in patient management. It is therefore recommended to identify factors affecting the improvement of collaboration, as well as maintaining enough weight to the role of nurses in patient management by further studies.