Selected aspects of physician–psychologist cooperation based on a pilot study conducted in hospices, nursery homes and medical care units

Background: The bio-psycho-social conception of human health implies the mutual influence of biological, psychological and social dimensions. Therefore, it is necessary to take them into account in diagnosis and therapy. Real collaboration, not merely simultaneous work of different specialists, allows patients’ quality of life to be improved efficiently. Cooperation between physicians and psychologists helping patients is of great importance. It is necessary to search for answers how to provide a high level of interprofessional cooperation in an interdisciplinary team. This applies not only to palliative care, but also to long-term care and nursery homes. The aim of this work is to define the characteristics of cooperation of physicians and psychologists and to verify the applicability of a questionnaire prepared for researching the cooperation.

Material and methods: A diagnostic survey was performed in this pilot research, and the results were statistically analyzed. An anonymous questionnaire was sent to physicians and psychologists in randomly selected hospices, nursery homes and long-term units in Poland, which were randomly selected.

Results: Seventy-three percent of physicians and 44% of psychologists described their vocational relationship as characterized by partnership and trust, while 27% of physicians and 44% of psychologists reported that they work “separately”. All psychologists claimed to trust doctors as professionals, while 80% of doctors claimed to trust psychologists. Moreover, research results describe the assessment of aspects which may influence cooperation as well as the cooperation itself, satisfaction with cooperation and understanding vocational goals.

Conclusions: Physician–psychologist cooperation is important in terms of the necessity of holistic understanding of the patient’s situation (according to the bio-psycho-social model).