Interprofessional collaboration is vital in providing well-functioning healthcare across services. Nonetheless, interprofessional collaboration turns out to be challenging and the political idea does not necessarily take place as intended in practice.
The main objective of this PhD project is to develop new knowledge on the practice of interprofessional collaborations within primary health care for children with disabilities.
Previous research on interprofessional collaboration mostly points out challenges and dysfunctional practices. Thus, in this project a particular emphasise will be to identify what works in well-rounded collaborations.
Knowledge on this issue is needed as to innovate the practice if interprofessional collaborations. Professionals' perception of collaborative services and how they “do it” will be explored.
In addition will next of kin and children’s experiences be explored to identify barriers and facilitators for collaborative service practices.
A focal point of interest is the interaction in the collaboration and children’s agency in interprofessional collaboration settings.
In other words, the project focuses on the interaction between actors who are often studied separately. Notably, children and next of kin are seen as part of the interprofessional collaboration in this project.
In general, we aim to explore interprofessional collaboration practices during transitions, with particularly emphasis on the transition from nursery to-primary-school.
Participants
More about the project
The project consists of three studies:
- Study 1 - Interprofessional collaboration for children with physical disabilities: A Scoping review
- Study 2 - Children with disabilities and next of kin experiences with interprofessional collaborations
- Study 3 - Professionals experiences with interprofessional collaboration
Interprofessional collaboration is a prerequisite for the health -, welfare -, and education services to be able to offer comprehensive services.
The fact that the health service collaborates across services is considered a key factor in ensuring good transitions in the life course of children and young people.
In Norway, there is a growing tendency for children who need comprehensive services not to receive them.
Furthermore, questions are raised as to whether the services meet the needs of the children, the next of kin and the family, and how the cooperation between the users and the services is.
Despite an increasing global focus on children’s right to participate in matters that concern them the child’s participation in the meeting with the services appears to be inadequate and half-hearted.
In order to better understand the conceptualization of interprofessional collaboration there is a need for more knowledge about what happens in practice.
Research questions
The overall research questions for the project are:
- How do the practices of interprofessional collaborations within primary care for children with disabilities take place in the municipality services?
- What characterises successful practices?
