JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on the healthcare system and has placed greater demands on nurse-physician collaboration. Nurses and physicians often struggle to share mutual responsibility and communicate effectively.

Objective:

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship of nurses and physicians during the pandemic and construct a new model combining the attitude and behaviors of the two groups to assess various factors' impacts on job satisfaction and confrontational behavior.

Methods:

We conducted this quantitative cross-sectional study to assess the relationship between nurses and physicians based on the attitudes and behaviors toward nurse-physician collaboration. We used an adapted and modified Jefferson Scale of Attitudes toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration (JSAPNC) questionnaire that added consisted of 17 items under 5 dimensions. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to assess the relationships between domains. Ordinal logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationship between different domains of the questionnaire and the satisfaction of the current nurse-physician relationship.

Results:

We included a total of 176 nurses and 124 physicians in this study. The two groups both agreed that the nurse-physician relationship had become better because of the COVID-19 pandemic (p=.09) and that the public had greater respect for medical staff (p=.57). Significantly more nurses (33.5% agreed vs. 63.7% agreed, p<.001) thought physicians and nurses were not treated with the same respect. Nurses scored significantly higher scores in caring vs. curing (16.27 ±2.88 vs. 17.43 ±2.50) and physician’s authority (8.72 ±3.21 vs. 7.24±3.32) compared with physicians. There was no statistical difference between the other sub-scales and the overall score. The shared education & collaboration had a significantly positive relationship with the nurse’s autonomy (Standardized coefficient, 0.98, p<.001).

Conclusions:

This study showed that nurses were more unsatisfied with the current nurse-physician relationship than physicians. Positive attitudes and behaviors towards shared collaboration and responsibility could help to improve the relationship between the two groups.