Collaborative family health care in an hospital setting: A pilot study on physicians and therapists´ perceptions

Résumé 0

"Although in recent years, the biopsychosocial approach has been emphasizedin the practice of family medicine, how physicians and therapist interact and in particularthe role of the family therapist in medical settings has been confusing. This studydescribes a qualitative study that focused on the understanding of what perceptionsinfluence the collaborative approach or the parameters of family systems medicine,how physicians and therapists perceive their role in the process of collaboration andfinally how they characterize the collaborative health care approach. For that purpose,an ethnographic methodology was selected. The domain analysis specified by Spreadleys’sDRS model revealed four categories that were important in physicians and therapists’perceptions of the definition of a collaborative approach: 1) collaboration, 2) practiceof a family systems medicine, 3) referral, 4) training, and 5) roles. Although in someof these domains family physicians and family therapists differ they seem pretty clearregarding the importance of the biopsychosocial model and interdisciplinary collaboration.Implications for future research and towards the practice and the operationalisation ofthe collaborative approach are emphasized."