title: Teamwork improvement in emergency trauma departments.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Interprofessional teamwork is considered as the key to improve the quality of patient management in critical settings such as trauma emergency departments, but it is not fully conceptualized in these areas to guide practice. The aim of this article is to explore interprofessional teamwork and its improvement strategies in trauma emergency departments.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants of this qualitative study consisted of 11 nurses and 6 supervisors recruited from the emergency departments of a newly established trauma center using purposive sampling. Data were generated using two focus group and six in-depth individual interviews, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Interprofessional teamwork attributes and improvement strategies were emerged in three main themes related to team, context, and goal. These were categorized as the effective presence of team members, role definition in team framework, managerial and physical context, effective patient management, and overcoming competing goals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Interprofessional teamwork in trauma emergency departments is explained as interdependence of team, context, and goal; so, it may be improved by strengthening these themes. The findings also provide a basis to evaluate, teach, and do research on teamwork.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Student Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Khademian
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Community based Psychiatric Care Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Farkhondeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sharif
authors.affiliation: Medical Ethics Department, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyed Ziaadin
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Tabei
authors.affiliation: Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Shahram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bolandparvaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Abbas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abbaszadeh
authors.affiliation: Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid Reza
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Abbasi
keywords: Emergency hospital services; Iran; interprofessional relations; nurse; patient care team; physician–nurse relations; qualitative research; quality improvement; trauma centers