What Patients and Families Don't Hear: Backstage Communication in Hospice Interdisciplinary Team Meetings

Backstage communication has been shown to play a vital role in a bona fide group's teamwork. Hospice interdisciplinary teams are considered bona fide groups, and hospice interdisciplinary team meetings constitute backstage communication because they occur away from patients and families. Video recordings of interdisciplinary team meetings were systematically coded for backstage communication mess ages and the extent to which different interdisciplinary team members participated in backstage communication was explored. Results revealed that predominant backstage communication messages included offering of impressions and formal reporting. The sharing of backstage messages in interdisciplinary team meetings enable hospice staff to manage emotions in the safety of the backstage as well as prepare for frontstage professionalism.