Nurse–Physician Collaboration: the Attitudes of Baccalaureate Nursing Students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences

BACKGROUND: Establishing professional communication between physicians and nurses regarding their supplemental roles in health care for patients is unavoidable. Existing studies have reported on related problems concerning ineffective professional collaboration among health care providers. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine Iranian bachelor of nursing students’ attitudes regarding collaboration between physicians and nurses at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study was an inferential cross sectional study. The study population consisted of all first and fourth academic-year Iranian bachelor of nursing students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (277 individuals), who were selected by convenience sampling. The participation rate was 97.47% (270 individuals). A questionnaire including demographic information and professional experience was used to gather information (included 12 questions). Additionally, the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration (JSAPNC) was also used (included 15 questions). Data were analyzed using the SPSS software. The applied statistical tests included: χ(2), t student and ANOVA test. RESULTS: The obtained mean attitude score for the first academic year (51.28 ± 4.98) was higher than the mean attitude score of the fourth academic year nursing students (50.56 ± 4.05). However, the results of the independent statistical t-test showed no significant difference between the two groups of students (P = 0.322). In the four dimensions of JSAPNC, concerning only the dimension of physician authority, there were significant differences between the two groups of students (P < 0.05). The obtained means for the first and fourth academic year of bachelor nursing students reflected their positive attitudes about collaboration between physicians and nurses. CONCLUSIONS: The positive attitude of most nursing students found in this study showed the need for appropriate and effective collaboration between medical staff; this collaboration will give patients and prospective patients the best possible care.