Factors Promoting Team Care for Nurses in Comprehensive Community-based Care Wards

This study aimed to clarify factors that promote team care among nurses in comprehensive community-based care (CCC) wards. After the establishment of “CCC Ward Hospitalization Fees 1 and 2”, we conducted an anonymous, self-report survey at medical facilities affiliated with the Japanese Association of Hospitals for Community-based Care. The survey covered items related to the distinctive features of CCC wards including organization, types of conferences, and basic attributes of nurses. Other items examined were team care in CCC wards, including awareness of cooperation, goal and information sharing, and competency of interprofessional collaborative practice Data analysis included the t-test for comparison between variables, oneway analysis of variance, and the post hoc Tukey’s test for multiple comparisons. In the stepwise multiple regression model, scores for four “awareness of cooperation” factors and three “goal and information sharing” factors were used as independent variables and the total score for “competency of interprofessional collaborative practice” was used as the dependent variable. In total, 452 nurses returned the survey (response rate: 35.7%) and 309 provided valid responses (valid response rate: 68.3%). Results suggest that factors promoting team care for nurses in CCC wards predicted decision-making based on the following: patient conditions and lifestyles; clarification of team goals; proposal, consideration, and agreement regarding care methods and focus of care; and cooperation in team development. We believe that team care in CCC wards will be promoted by implementing the factors revealed in this study.