Collective action within interprofessional teams in health services

In Quebec, primary health care services are founded on the principle of interprofessional collaboration. This paper describes how we constructed an understanding of the nature of interprofessional collaboration as it is experienced in primary care services. The empirical data developed in this study uncovered important difficulties associated with collaboration and a number of complications inherent to interprofessional collaboration. Firstly, a constructivist methodology and a process of continuous recursive interconnections among data, the participants and the theory allowed a narrative complex of the case histories to emerge. Secondly, the organisational approach proposed by Ehrard Friedberg proved to be an essential framework to help interpret the case histories. This organisational approach is based on a sociology of action and it specifically underlines the construction of collective action. The results of our research is presented in the form of a model of the process and the emergence of interprofessional collaboration. This model adapts and reformulates the four dimensions of Friedberg's organisational approach and further qualifies them within the context of interprofessional collaboration in the health services.