Operating room nurses’ and anaesthetic nurses’ experience of working together with different professional categories during surgery – an interview study
Abstract
Background: In the National Board of Health and Welfare's report from 2019, just over 13,000 care-related injuries were identified between the years 2013–2018. Of these, 213 led to deaths, of which 53% of patients underwent surgery. The causes of death varied between surgical injuries, healthcare-associated infections and failing organs. The report also showed that 39% of care-related deaths could have been avoided. Research shows that the operating room is a particularly vulnerable environment for healthcare injuries because the multi-professional team works together under great pressure and where the patient is often in a vulnerable and helpless state. The teamwork between the professionals is therefore important to be able to perform a safe and effective surgery. However, shortcomings in teamwork are one of the most common reasons why complications occur during surgery.
Motive: Research shows that good collaboration between professionals is the basis for safe and effective surgery. However, shortcomings in teamwork have shown an increased risk of complications during surgery, postoperative care injuries, mortality and increased care costs. Much of the current research is focused on teamwork within the entire operative team and not much from the nurse's perspective. This study may result in increased knowledge about surgery and anesthesia nurses' experiences of teamwork during surgery and how it affects their work situation.
Aim: To examine operating room nurses´ and anaesthetic nurses´ experience of working together with different professional categories during surgery.
Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews with four surgical nurses and four anesthesia nurses. The interviews were analyzed with a qualitative content analysis.
Result: Three main categories: the Nurse's experiences of good teamwork, the Nurse's experiences of poor teamwork and The different roles of the team in the operationgroom, with ten subcategories arose based on the participants' experiences
Conclusion: The study shows that experiences of good teamwork were related to having an understanding of the different professions, having good communication and a good team spirit. The experiences of bad teamwork was related to hierarchy inside the operating room, stress and personal issues depended on who they worked with depended on personal characters.