• Zahra Khademian, Farkhondeh Sharif, Seyed Ziaadin Tabei, Shahram Bolandparvaz, Abbas Abbaszadeh, and Hamid Reza Abbasi.
• Department of Nursing, Student Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
• Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2013 Jul 1;18(4):333-9.

BackgroundInterprofessional teamwork is considered as the key to improve the quality of patient management in critical settings such as trauma emergency departments, but it is not fully conceptualized in these areas to guide practice. The aim of this article is to explore interprofessional teamwork and its improvement strategies in trauma emergency departments.Materials And MethodsParticipants of this qualitative study consisted of 11 nurses and 6 supervisors recruited from the emergency departments of a newly established trauma center using purposive sampling. Data were generated using two focus group and six in-depth individual interviews, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.ResultsInterprofessional teamwork attributes and improvement strategies were emerged in three main themes related to team, context, and goal. These were categorized as the effective presence of team members, role definition in team framework, managerial and physical context, effective patient management, and overcoming competing goals.ConclusionsInterprofessional teamwork in trauma emergency departments is explained as interdependence of team, context, and goal; so, it may be improved by strengthening these themes. The findings also provide a basis to evaluate, teach, and do research on teamwork.

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