Interprofessional Role Clarification Among Licensed Health Care Practitioners in Rural and Smaller Community Hospitals
Abstract
Enhancement of healthcare systems has increased the demand for healthcare practitioners (HCPs) to share client care by functioning in a variety of roles within interprofessional teams. When these roles are integrated into team practice, the outcome can be collaborative sharing of client care responsibilities but without sharing, team members can experience uncertainty as to what their contributions should be. Understanding this shift in practice begins with role clarification, whereby HCPs have self-awareness about their own roles, and then gain an understanding of the roles of others in their collaborative practitioner groupings. Interprofessional role clarification (IPRC) is thought to be necessary for collaborative practice, but a paucity of literature and measurement instruments address its nature and processes, resulting in gaps that limit our knowledge. This study examined factors that potentially influence HCPs’ capacity to achieve IPRC when engaging with IP team members. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the relationships between contributing antecedents (general self-efficacy, conscientiousness, work engagement) and HCPs’ IPRC and furthermore whether these relationships were mediated by their work engagement and/or moderated by members’ reciprocity with team members. The competency of IPRC require further development; this study began with a concept analysis of role clarification as a means to identify its attributes to generate instrument items, followed by psychometric testing of an instrument designed to measure its effectiveness in licensed HCPs. The model was tested using a convenience sample of 238 HCPs from 15 licensed professions who provided client care. The preliminary model demonstrated a reasonably good fit [X2 (df) = (111.65/48) = 2.33, p