Teachers’ Work Engagement and Burnout Profiles: Associations With a Sense of Efficacy and Interprofessional Collaboration at School

This study provides new insights into the work-related well-being of teachers, defined here as engagement and burnout, by investigating their associations with the teachers’ sense of efficacy and interprofessional collaboration in schools. Using a person-oriented approach and latent profile analysis, a sample of Finnish comprehensive school teachers (N = 355) were classified based on their work engagement and burnout. Three profiles were identified: engaged, engaged-exhausted, and burned-out. Teachers with distinct profiles differed from each other in terms of their sense of efficacy and experiences of interprofessional collaboration, suggesting that both might have an important role in enhancing work engagement and preventing burnout.

Interplay of coordination, co-creation and community building: examining interprofessional collaboration in workplace development efforts in health care

Purpose Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is increasingly important in work and workplace learning. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of IPC that are relevant for learning and developing at work. Design/methodology/approach We examine IPC in the discussion data of health care professionals when designing, implementing and evaluating developmental tasks. Qualitative content analysis is carried out on temporally sequential task trajectories, considering IPC from the perspective of the objects and goals of IPC task activity in developmental efforts. Findings The developmentally relevant characteristics of IPC are crystallized in the concepts of coordination, co-creation and community building, which play different, interdependent roles in development efforts. We show their interplay and how they complement each other in practice. Research limitations/implications Our findings regarding IPC characteristics are to be interpreted as working hypotheses and resources for further research. Practical implications Understanding the dynamics of IPC is useful for renewing work practices. Attention to the interplay and complementarity of IPC characteristics may help in the design and implementation of effective and sustained development efforts. Originality/value The dynamics of IPC in developmental settings have not been sufficiently studied. This paper proposes three developmentally relevant and intertwined characteristics of IPC for scholars of workplace learning.

Boundary work in response to professionals’ contextual constraints: Micro-strategies in interprofessional collaboration

Boundary-work research has extensively explored how professionals engage in boundary work to protect or expand their professional boundaries in interprofessional collaboration (IPC). Yet professionals’ contextual constraints in everyday work, such as time pressure or legal restrictions, often result in competing interests of the professionals involved in IPC, prompting them to engage in boundary work to limit—instead of protect or expand—their boundaries. Our empirical analysis uses comprehensive qualitative data on IPC in Germany between self-employed general practitioners (GPs) and registered nurses employed in nursing homes in which GPs’ efficiency interests compete with nurses’ safeguarding interests, leading both professionals to engage in boundary-work efforts to limit their boundaries. Our findings provide a comprehensive understanding and framework of professionals’ boundary work, showing that individual GPs and nurses typically hold a portfolio of various defending and accommodating micro-strategies. Based on our first-order findings, we identify how different sources of power enable particular micro-strategies and explore how the choice of micro-strategies depends on different forms of trust in the collaborating partner. Lastly, we outline interactions of micro-strategies, illustrating how the outcomes of professionals’ bilateral boundary work depend on the sequence of these strategies.

Factors Related To Implementation of An Interprofessional Communication Concept In Thoracic Oncology: A Mixed-Methods Study

Background: An innovative patient-centred interprofessional communication concept with advanced lung cancer patients (Heidelberg Milestone Communication Approach, MCA) has been developed and implemented. Role changes and interprofessional communication are challenging in a busy outpatient oncology service. The aim of the study was to assess team-related factors associated with its implementation and thoracic oncology teams’ attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration.Methods: Interviews and focus groups on implementation and interprofessional collaboration in the context of MCA were conducted with healthcare staff. The topics were analysed deductively, guided by the Professional Interactions factor of the Tailored Implementation for Chronic Diseases (TICD) framework. In addition, 3 of the 4 subscales of the validated German translation of the University of the West of England Interprofessional Questionnaire (UWE-IP-D) were collected prior to implementation of MCA (t0) with follow-up data collections at 4 months (t1), 10 months (t2) and 17 months (t3). Descriptive analysis included calculating subscale sum scores and categorizing each subscale into positive, neutral and negative attitudes. Results: Fifteen staff members participated in the interviews and focus groups. The main interprofessional interaction factors associated with implementation concerned the knowledge of the MCA and the impact of the intervention on team roles, on information sharing and on transfer processes between wards. The survey with 87 staff (44 nurses, 13 physicians, 12 psycho-social staff, 7 therapists, and 11 others) participating at least once (t0: n=20, t1: n=48, t2: n=33, t3: n=25) found heterogeneous attitudes. A positive attitude to ‘Communication and Teamwork’ was indicated by individual sum scores between 10 and 23 (M=17.7, SD=3.0). The majority of the respondents (n=48) had neutral attitudes to ‘Interprofessional Interaction’ with individual sum scores varying between 13 and 45 (positive attitude n=14, negative attitude n=22; M=28.5, SD=5.6). ‘Interprofessional Relationships’ were characterized by primarily positive attitudes (n=80) (neutral: n=6, negative attitude n=1; M=16.0, SD=3.6). There were no differences between collection times.Conclusions: Positive experiences and potential shortfalls in the implementation were observed. Future introductions of interprofessional communication concepts require further activities which should address the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards interprofessional care.Trial registration: DRKS00013469 / Date of registration: 22/12/2017.

Do we still need professional boundaries? The multiple influences of boundaries on interprofessional collaboration

Although a body of research suggests that interprofessional collaboration is hindered by the presence of professional boundaries, more recent work has demonstrated that removing these boundaries also has negative consequences for collaboration. To address these paradoxical findings, we examine two different team-level initiatives that aimed at softening and breaking down professional boundaries, drawing on data gathered from 78 in-depth interviews and two years of observations of four cross-occupational teams in the English National Health Service. Our inductive analysis of this data shows that professionals use boundaries and their manifestations —which become apparent through materialization, articulation, and embodiment— to identify and retrieve professional categories. The conspicuous presence of boundaries allows professionals to anticipate other team members’ expertise and roles, as well as different aspects of team tasks. We theorize our findings by showing how professional boundaries can be positively interlaced with interprofessional collaboration by making visible and grounding naturalized systems of classification.

How we implemented Continuous Interprofessional Education at a newly established public hospital in Singapore

Introduction To promote interprofessional collaboration (IPC), our newly established hospital implemented the Continuing Interprofessional Education (CIPE) initiatives, which included a half-day workshop and 15 sessions of Grand Rounds, with the content focusing on establishing interprofessional patient-centered care pathways, policies, and ultimately to build a community of IPC. Methods To evaluate the impact of the CIPE initiatives, 120 staff who attended at least 50% of the CIPE sessions were invited to complete the Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS). Results 67.5% of the invited participants completed the survey. The majority of the participants answered “agree” or “strongly agree” for the domains of Teamwork/Roles/Responsibilities, Patient-centeredness, Diversity and Ethics, and Community Centeredness after going through the CIPE initiatives. The Interprofessional Bias domain revealed mixed responses. Discussions and Implications of practice The significant contributing factors towards the success of the CIPE Grand Rounds included: (1) the topics were proposed by our staff and centered on clinical practice; (2) the delivery format was interactive, guided by adult learning principles. The mixed responses regarding the presence of biases among the participants suggested that interprofessional biases are deep-rooted in the healthcare setting, and attendance of these CIPE Grand Rounds made participants more acutely aware of these biases. However, more actions are needed to eradicate these biases.