2018 Volume 21 Issue 2 Pages 49-57
Objective: To assess the “face-to-face relationship” among hospital nurses and home visiting station nurses（ST）and explore the various factors affecting that relationship in a future community comprehensive health care system.
Method: There were 556 subjects in this study, comprising 230 nurses belonging to 230 hospitals with home care coordination departments, in the capital city region of prefecture A and 326 ST belonging to 326 ST in the same prefecture.An anonymous questionnaire delivered by mail was completed by the subjects. The dependent variable was the “face-to-face relationship” and the independent variables were the subjects’ basic characteristics and the nurses’ teamwork competencies.
Results: There were 234 valid questionnaire replies（hospital: 83; visiting nurse ST: 151）. The valid response rate was 98.3％（hospital: 97.6％ ; ST: 98.7％）. The average age was 44.0 ± 8.5 years for all subjects; 45.8 ± 8.6 years for hospital nurses and 43.1 ± 8.4 years for ST. The total scores for the face-to-face relationship assessment were 69.7 ± 11.9 points for all subjects: 70.8 ± 13.6 points for hospital nurses and 69.1 ± 10.8 points for ST. For all subjects, the variable that showed a correlation with the face-to-face relationship assessment score was the total score for the 11 factors under teamwork competencies（all subjects: p ＝ 0.01, hospital nurses: p ＝ 0.04, ST: p ＝ 0.03）. Among these factors, some of the results were: “Asserting one’s own thoughts, judgments, or actions to influence others”（all subjects: p ＝ 0.06, hospital nurses: p ＝ 0.05, ST: p ＝ 0.03）; “Effective use of others’ abilities”（all subjects: p ＝ 0.07, hospital nurses: p ＝ 0.06, ST: p ＝ 0.03）; and “Participation in collaborative activities with other nurses”（p ＝ 0.02）.
Conclusions: It was clarified that attention should be paid to shared individual competency and environmental factors, transcending hospitals and ST, to promote collaboration among nurses in a future community comprehensive health care system.
