Nurse-Physician Relations and Quality of Nursing Care: Findings From a National Survey of Nurses

Abstract

This article investigates the association between nurse-physician working relations and nurse-rated quality of nursing team care. The analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of registered nurses working in Canadian hospitals. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine the association between the quality of nurse-physician working relations and nurses' reports of fair or poor nursing team care on the last shift worked. Unfavourable quality of nurse-physician working relations was significantly related to lower quality of nursing team care, controlling for other potential influences. These influences included low nurse co-worker support, job dissatisfaction, and self-rated poor general health, each of which was also related to lower care quality. The analysis highlights the importance of interprofessional working relations to nurse-perceived quality of patient care in Canadian hospitals.