Collaboration and service quality among health care professionals working with children and their families in Norwegian municipalities

Abstract

The main objective of this thesis was to examine the importance of interprofessional collaboration and teamwork between different health care professionals on outcomes that are relevant for the professionals themselves but also for the organizations, and indirectly also for the users of the different services. Interprofessional collaboration and teamwork are an integral part of the work health and social care professionals do and can therefore be viewed as job resources for the professionals, which help them to conduct their work. Four different studies, with different aims, participants, and methodology, were conducted to answer different parts of the overall research question. The first study was longitudinal and examined if a reorganization of services for children and their families to an integrated Child and Family Unit would lead to better collaboration between the services and increased service quality. The second study used cross-sectional data to examine if the short version of the Team Climate Inventory is a valid instrument to assess teamwork. The third study was cross-sectional and used the Job Demands-Resources Model to examine the relationship between different job demands and resources (e.g., interprofessional collaboration and teamwork) in relation to worker well-being and organizational outcomes. The fourth study was a meta-analysis synthesizing research about the relationship between interprofessional collaboration and teamwork and important outcomes such as worker well-being and organizational outcomes (e.g., service quality).