Interdisciplinary collaboration in reablement – a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: In-depth knowledge regarding interdisciplinary collaboration, a key feature in reablement, is scarce. OBJECTIVE: To elucidate how the interdisciplinary collaboration in reablement worked in a Norwegian context. SAMPLE AND METHODS: Seven focus group interviews were conducted with 33 health care providers working in interdisciplinary reablement teams in seven municipalities across the country. The focus group interviews were transcribed and an hermeneutical analysis was conducted. RESULTS: The analysis resulted in four main themes: “participant’s own goals as a common interdisciplinary platform”, “a positive professional community”, “learning from each other’s skills and competencies” and “new roles and joint efforts but specific competencies”. The results show that interdisciplinary collaboration in reablement depends on participants defining their own rehabilitation goals, which function as a professional unifying platform for the interdisciplinary collaboration. The challenges for participants in reablement are often complex and include assessments, effort and a need for close collaboration between several different professionals. A tight interdisciplinary collaboration causes major changes in roles, often from a particular role to a more general role with broader job tasks. Although different professionals perform the same rehabilitation tasks, it is important that each professional contributes their unique competence and thus together they complete each other’s competencies. CONCLUSION: Factors that have a positive impact on interdisciplinary collaboration in reablement are participants’ definitions of their goals, number and variety of professionals involved, how closely these professionals collaborate, the amount of time for communication and shared planning and decision making.