Interprofessional decision-making in integrated youth care: a qualitative study

In shared decision-making (SDM) with families facing complex problems, interprofessional decision-making is an essential part of providing appropriate care yet complicated by the differing perspectives and responsibilities of professionals involved. To strengthen interprofessional decision-making often multidisciplinary teams, such as Specialist Integrated care Teams (SITs), are organized. Since little is known on how interprofessional decision-making is practiced in this setting, this study explores facilitators and barriers of interprofessional decision-making within SITs and with other care services. We gathered perspectives of families, professionals, and organizational managers of SITs by 43 semi-structured interviews and conducted 40 observations of SITs multidisciplinary team meetings. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was applied to analyze the transcripts both deductively and inductively. Four categories of facilitators and barriers for interprofessional decision-making within SITs (on the professional, team, and organizational level) and with other care services were formulated: (1) organizing decision-making, (2) dealing with differing opinions, (3) motivation for interprofessional decision-making, and (4) embedding interprofessional decision-making in SDM with families. In SDM with families facing complex problems, professionals and services need to balance decision-making both in multidisciplinary teams and with other care services, considering a formal organization of decision-making, integrating professional perspectives, and keeping the family in the center of decision-making.