Perceived Impact and Factors Influencing Multidisciplinary Collaboration in Patients Care among Healthcare Providers in Federal Medical Center Onitsha, Anambra, Nigeria

Patient’s satisfaction and quality care is paramount in any health care setting, and in order to achieve this, multidisciplinary collaboration in patient care is essential. Globally, multidisciplinary collaboration has been identified as a key means to improve quality and safety of patient care. The study aimed to assess the perceived impact and factors influencing multidisciplinary collaboration in patients care among healthcare providers in Federal Medical Center Onitsha. Descriptive cross sectional study was adopted for this research work. Instrument for collection of data was questionnaire formulated in a 5-point Likert scale. A reliability coefficient of 0.86 was established proving the instrument reliable. Healthcare providers from the study area made up the population, while 177 were drawn as sample using proportionate sampling technique. Data were analyzed with SPSS using mean, standard deviation, grand mean, percentage and Pearson’s Chi-square. The result of the study showed that majority of the participants were female 125(70.6%) the healthcare providers have good perception on the perceived impact of multidisciplinary collaboration in patients’ care. 52.1% of the nurses, 64.3% doctors and 39.1% allied health professional possess good perceptive on perceived nurses, doctors and allied healthcare professional related factors influencing multidisciplinary collaboration in patients care respectively. Furthermore, 60.0% and 41.2% of the participants possess good perspective on perceived organizational and client related factors influencing multidisciplinary collaboration in patient care. Several important factors play a role in a multidisciplinary collaborative in patient care. In this study, there was different perceptions regarding the factor influencing collaboration among healthcare professionals; communication gap, time constraint, negative attitude toward changes and innovation and poor managerial leadership / lack of supervision were considered as hindrances to multidisciplinary collaboration in patient care among the healthcare providers. Multidisciplinary collaboration needs to be socialized and its importance needs to be made known in every healthcare institution.