Open Access Journal Indian Journal of Medical Research and Pharmaceutical Sciences July 2018; 5(7) ISSN: ISSN: 2349-5340 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1314077 Impact Factor: 4.054 © Indian J Med Res Pharm Sci http://www.ijmprs.com/ [8] ETHNOGRAPHIC AND OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH IN THE HEALTHCARE SERVICES: CREATING POLICIES IN DEMENTIA CARE Carlo Lazzari * * International Centre for Healthcare and Medical Education (ICHME), United Kingdom Abstract Keywords: Ethnographic research, dementia care, partnership, Patient-centered care is becoming one of the primary targets in treating people with dementia. The current study aims to explore some of the advantages of conducting ethnographic observational research to investigate staff behaviors in clinical settings treating patients with dementia. Furthermore, one of the significant motors of quality of care for dementia is a successful partnership in multidisciplinary teams and teamwork. However, to create policy paper to regulate group skills and behaviors, standard interviews and quantitative research might not help in discovering target manners, attitudes, and skills especially if there are strict regulations that penalize professional negligence. The same applies for capturing personal accounts on behaviors by using standard interviews. In this case, the actor of targeted actions and skills might not like to disclose personal errors for fear of retaliation. Hence, ethnographic research by a participant observer might be the only viable option in capturing teamwork and organizational behaviors in dementia care. The writer works in dementia wards in a clinical role, therefore, by regular participation into wards and clinical activities he was able to outline the required policies and principles regarding behaviors in patient-centered care. Introduction In the current article, the author will illustrate how the ethnographic research method with observer as the participant can be used to perform quality assessment of interprofessional teamwork working in dementia and to generate policies for improving multidisciplinary teams. As the policies in dementia care also tend to promote desired behaviors of multidisciplinary teams, ethnographic research by a participant observer might be the only viable option in capturing teamwork and organizational behaviors that should be addressed by policymakers. Other research methods using more structured interviews and surveys might not be able to capture real conducts in dementia teams. In fact, these behaviors develop during the regular clinics, actions, and performances and there might not be clear policies on how to participate in joint care pathways. Indeed, one of the significant motors in patient-centeredness in dementia is the application of collaborative practice in interprofessional teams. As defines by Barr, healthcare workers who participate in interprofessional teams learn ‘with, from and about each other.’ 1 Besides, interprofessional learning is facilitated by collective knowledge of people cooperating in a small team. 2 By progressive cooperation in interprofessional teams, healthcare professionals working in dementia have also the opportunity to refine their emotional intelligence and empathy skills which diffuse in the whole team, hence reflecting in improved skills for patient-centered care. In fact, through emotional intelligence healthcare professionals can develop better compassion towards their patients. 3 Emotional intelligence is described as the aptitude to use emotions and the awareness about emotions to improve thinking. 4 Hence, the result is a professional behavior that satisfies quality requirements in dementia care. However, using policies to increase health carers’ ability to do more complicated jobs does not indicate that these a bilities are put into practice. 5 The strategy to approach dementia wards and workers by observing their behaviors and skills appears more appropriate due to significant biases in surveys and questionnaires. Besides, the Hawthorne effect