Barriers to teamwork in caring for patients with COVID-19: A qualitative analysis of nurses’ perceptions in a secondary care setting in Iran

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study aims to explore the perceptions of nurses providing care to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients about barriers to teamwork.

Materials and Methods

The qualitative study was carried out using a content analysis method. Individual and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 nurses in Iran. Conventional content analysis was used to categorize the data.

Results

The barriers to teamwork in caring for COVID-19 patients were divided into two categories including individual problems and organizational challenges. Individual problems were subcategorized into inadequate education, lack of motivation, inexperience, and misconceptions. Organizational challenges were subdivided into lack of organizational support, poor organizational communication, and inadequate infrastructure.

Conclusion

The results of this study highlighted barriers that led to poor teamwork in caring for these patients. These results can be employed to develop a model to eliminate or reduce barriers such as individual problems and organizational challenges of caring for patients with COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• Coronavirus
• COVID-19
• teamwork
• nursing care
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Nasrin Rezaee

Nasrin Rezaee is an associate professor of psychiatric nursing at Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. She obtained her Ph.D.’s degree from the School of Nursing, Tehran University of Medical Sciences of Iran.

Marjan Mardani-Hamooleh

Marjan Mardani-Hamooleh is an associate professor of psychiatric nursing at Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. She obtained her Ph.D.’s degree from the School of Nursing, Tehran University of Medical Sciences of Iran. She has a special interest in human studies.

Hadi Hamidi

Hadi Hamidi is an assistant professor of English language at Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.