Improving interprofessional collaboration in a community setting: Relationships with burnout, engagement and service quality Monica Martinussen 1 , Frode Adolfsen 1 , Camilla Lauritzen 1 and Astrid Marie Richardsen 2 1 Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway, 2 Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway The main purpose of this study was, firstly, to evaluate the effect of an intervention aimed at improving interprofessional collaboration and service quality, and secondly, to examine if collaboration could predict burnout, engagement and service quality among human service professionals working with children and adolescents. The intervention included the establishment of local interprofessional teams and offering courses. The sample was recruited from six different small municipalities in Northern Norway (N ¼ 93) and a comparison group from four similar municipalities (N ¼ 58). Participation in the project increased the level of collaboration in the intervention group significantly (Hedges’ g ¼ 0.36), but not the perceived level of service quality. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test a model for predicting burnout, engagement and perceived service quality using work-related factors, including collaboration as predictors. Both burnout and engagement were predicted by job demands and resources after controlling for demographic variables and participation in the project. Service quality was mostly predicted by collaboration. Increasing collaboration seems possible by introducing practice-based changes; however, this intervention did not have the desired effect on perceived service quality. Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration, Maslach Burnout Inventory, mental health, occupational stress INTRODUCTION In 1998, a 10-year program for improving the mental health care in Norway was initiated from the government. The program included increased resources and a restructuring of services as well as a change toward decentralized rather than centralized health care services for both children and adults (The Norwegian Research Council, 2010). Evaluations of the reform have indicated several improvements, including a higher number of health care personnel, but collaboration between services and professionals could still be improved (The Norwegian Research Council, 2010). Lack of collabor- ation and poor communication has been linked to adverse outcomes for patients as well as reduced patient satisfaction (e.g. Fewster-Thuente & Velsor Friedrich, 2008). The main purpose of this study was to evaluate an intervention aimed at improving the collaboration between different professionals from different services working with children and their families in a local community setting, and to investigate how it may affect worker health and well-being. Working with children and their families may be rewarding and exhausting at the same time. Research on stress and burnout has indicated that both health care personnel and teachers are at risk for developing burnout due to the nature of their work (Barford & Whelton, 2010; Lasalvia et al., 2009; Martinussen & Richardsen, 2011). A review of 17 studies suggested that burnout among human service professionals is linked to poor work performance, low customer or client satisfaction and low organizational citizen behavior (Taris, 2006). Burnout among health professionals has also been linked to patient outcome variables, for example patient satisfaction (Leiter, Harvie, & Frizzel, 1998), readmissions to hospital at follow-up for mental health patients (Priebe et al., 2004) and patient safety (Teng, Shyu, Chio, Fan, & Lam, 2010). Work engagement defined as work-related well-being (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonza ´lez- Roma ´, & Bakker, 2002), has been less extensively studied compared to burnout, but a meta-analysis of 74 studies indicated that engagement was linked to outcomes such as high commitment and performance (Halbesleben, 2010). According to the job demands and resources model (JD-R model) (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004), the effects of high job demands (such as work overload and conflicts) and too few resources (e.g. support and autonomy) are additive and have a unique contribution on the development of burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001). Engagement, on the other hand, is mostly Correspondence: Monica Martinussen, Regional Centrefor Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, University of Tromsø, Tromsø 9037, Norway. E-mail: monica.martinussen@uit.no Received 26 April 2011; revised 14 October 2011; accepted 1 December 2011 Journal of Interprofessional Care, 2012, 26: 219–225 q 2012 Informa UK, Ltd. ISSN 1356-1820 print/ISSN 1469-9567 online DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2011.647125 219 J Interprof Care Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso on 11/24/14 For personal use only.