TEAM ATTITUDE EVALUATION: AN EVALUATION IN HOSPITAL COMMITTEES

INTRODUCTION: Patients’ health and safety is not only a function of complex treatments and advanced therapeutic technologies but also a function of a degree based on which health care professionals fulfill their duties effectively as a team. The aim of this study was to determine the attitude of hospital committee members about teamwork in Kerman hospitals. METHODOLOGY: This study was conducted in 2014 on 171 members of clinical teams and committees of four educational hospitals in Kerman University of Medical Sciences. To collect data, the standard “team attitude evaluation” questionnaire was used. This questionnaire consisted of five domains which evaluated the team attitude in areas related to the team structure, leadership, situation monitoring, mutual support, and communication in the form of a 5-point Likert type scale. To analyze data, descriptive statistical tests, T-test, ANOVA, and linear regression were used. RESULTS: The average score of team attitude for hospital committee members was 3.9 out of 5. The findings showed that leadership had the highest score among the subscales of team work attitude, while mutual support had the lowest score. We could also observe that responsibility was an important factor in participants’ team work attitude (β = -0.184, p = 0.024). Comparing data in different subgroups revealed that employment, marital status, and responsibility were the variables affecting the participants’ attitudes in the team structure domain. Marital status played a role in leadership; responsibility had a role in situation monitoring; and work experience played a role in domains of communication and mutual support. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital committee members had a positive attitude towards teamwork. Training hospital staff and paying particular attention to key elements of effectiveness in a health care team can have a pivotal role in promoting the team culture.