Faculty member's experience regarding rehabilitation teamwork education in Iran (A descriptive exploratory qualitative study)

BACKGROUND: The objective of rehabilitation therapists is to increase the functional abilities and quality of life in people with disability. Hence, cooperation becomes a basis for enhanced quality of care. The current study aims to investigate the experience of faculty members at the School of Rehabilitation Sciences, regarding teamwork education for rehabilitation students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a descriptive-exploratory qualitative study. Maximum variation purposive sampling was used, where in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 faculty members working at four departments of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, in the year 2015–2016. Each interview was transcribed word-by-word and went under analysis through MAXQDA 10. Finally, after reviewing the transcripts several times, the primary codes, subthemes, and themes were formed. RESULTS: Data analysis resulted in the formation of 469 open codes. Three themes emerged, including the experienced challenges to interprofessional education (IPE), experienced facilitators of team collaboration, and optimization of IPE. The subthemes of the first theme included personal challenges, academic context, and sociocultural atmosphere. The subthemes of second theme-included experience with various forms of interprofessional (IP) collaboration, IPE in certain clinical areas, and scarcity of role models for IPE. The subthemes related to the third theme involved the development of macro policies to facilitate IPE increased interpersonal collaboration and reduced expectation of competition, and management and development of educational capability in professors. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that faculty staffs do not provide the same definition of teamwork education and often do not prioritize it in their clinical teaching. Furthermore, barriers, facilitators and some solutions were discussed by them.