[Descriptive study regarding nurse physician collaboration in a Local Health Unit in Veneto (Italy)]

Interdisciplinary collaboration has been identified as an essential element of quality health care, but the perceptions of physicians and nurses vary in a number of respects, including the extent to which collaboration and joint decision making are valued. Reasons for these differences have been attributed to gender, historical origins of the two professions, and disparities between physicians and nurses with regard to socioeconomic status, education, and socialization.

this descriptive study was designed to compare the attitudes of physicians and nurses toward physician-nurse collaboration in a Local Health Unit in Veneto (Italy).

total participants were 320 physicians and nurses but only 222 physicians and nurses completed the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration. A convenience sampling method was used, and participating was voluntary. They were compared on the total scores of four factors of the Jefferson Scale (shared education and team work, caring as opposed to curing, nurses, autonomy, physicians dominance).

nurses expressed more positive attitudes toward collaboration than physicians.