Intraprofessional collaboration: A qualitative study of registered nurses’ experiences

Background: Collaboration and intraprofessional relationships are essential for healthy work environ-ments; they affect everyday practice, quality of care, patient outcomes, and nurses' welfare. Little is known about how nurses experience nurse-nurse collaboration.Aims: To describe registered nurses' experiences of nurse-nurse collaboration in one Finnish and one Norwegian university hospital. Design: This study used a qualitative descriptive approach applying the Consolidated criteria for Report-ing Qualitative research guidelines.Methods: Interviews were conducted with 29 nurses in two university hospitals in Finland and Norway in 2015. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and data were categorised by inductive content analysis.Findings: The registered nurses described nurse-nurse collaboration as equal and smooth collaboration towards a common goal with the patient in the centre, professional collegiality, a functioning working en-vironment and clear communication. Also essential were empowering relationships, including categories such as sharing of knowledge and skills, and support and sharing of work.Discussion: There is considerable variation in the ways nurses understand and experience collaboration within the profession. Conclusions: Intraprofessional collaboration profoundly affects nurses' well-being. Strategies and contin-uous reinforcement are needed to strengthen and support intraprofessional collaboration, for instance through staff education and training.(c) 2022 Australian College of Nursing Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )