Doctor and nurse perception of inter-professional co-operation in hospitals

To explore doctor and nurse perception of inter-professional co-operation in hospitals; discuss professional differences as reflections of cultural diversity in the perspective of quality improvement.

Cross-sectional survey data from a stratified sample of 15 Norwegian hospitals, September 1998: 551 doctors and 2050 nurses at medical and surgical wards. Measures. Doctor and nurse evaluation of their inter-professional co-operation was mapped. Logistic regression models predicting their satisfaction were compared.

Doctors were significantly more often than nurses satisfied with the inter-professional co-operation of the two groups. Satisfaction with inter-professional co-operation was predicted by a number of work situation variables. Some of them contribute differently to doctor and nurse satisfaction.

Doctors and nurses not only evaluate their inter-professional co-operation differently, they also appear to define the concept in different ways. Hospital managers should include an understanding of this cultural diversity into the basis of their quality improvement efforts.