Improving interprofessional collaboration: The effect of training in nonviolent communication
Anne-Claire Museux, Serge Dumont, Emmanuelle Careau & Élise Milot
Social Work in Health Care, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00981389.2016.1164270
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Abstract: This article describes a study carried out on 9 Canadian social workers chosen from two different teams. These workers received 7 hours of experiential training in CNV. Two assessments (the Team Observed Structured Clinical Encounter (TOSCE) and the Observed InterProfessional Collaboration (OIPC) developed by the same team) were carried out by two observers before and after the training, during simulated clinical meetings between the participants. The TOSCE showed an improvement in role clarification and the patient-centred approach, and the OIPC showed an improvement in several group skills (decision-making and collective development of an action plan) but a deterioration in the communication score. Interviews conducted after the study show that the training was well received and that its content was retained.
Comment: The interest of this study is to propose semi-quantitative tools to evaluate several aspects of collaboration within a group by means of third-party observation. Several skills seemed to improve in the vast majority of participants and therefore showed significant effects. The absence of a control group and the very limited number of participants remain limiting factors. The presence of observers during the interprofessional meetings and the fact that this was a simulation of meetings may bias the results in the expected direction.
Perspective : Observation by a third party and the use of semi-quantitative scales provide more objective arguments than simple interviews. The combination of these two approaches is interesting. Qualitative interviews conducted after the study require confirmation on a larger scale and on parameters that would not have been directly addressed during the NVC training.