Teamwork among members of the health care teams is integral in the delivery of quality health care. Being highly advocated in settings such as primary health care, studies establishing the relationship between teamwork and quality of care are indeed necessary. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent and relationship of teamwork quality as perceived by primary health care team (PHCT) members and quality of care as perceived by clients. This descriptive-correlational study made use of two-stage cluster sampling method to select the 22 health centers of Manila wherein 195 PHCT members and 300 clients were purposively selected. Translated short version of Teamwork Quality Survey and Health Center Assessment Questionnaire were also utilized in data gathering while descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for data analysis.

Results revealed a high perception of teamwork quality (mean=4.35) and quality of care (mean=4.23) among respective subjects. However, a significant negative relationship was found to exist between teamwork quality and quality of care (r= 0.129 p=0.032), indicating that high perception of teamwork is related to low quality of care as perceived by clients and vice versa. Nursing leaders and managers need not only rely on the quality of interaction within teams but also reevaluate task processes and other structures of care influencing patient outcome for quality improvement in primary health care.

Human ; Male ; Female ; Quality Improvement ; Patient Care Team ; Quality Of Health Care ; Primary Health Care ; Leadership ; Surveys And Questionnaires

Cancer as a disease exists as a global health concern. Among all types, cancer of the breasts was noted as one of the most common in the Philippines. Narrow focus has been attributed in understanding the communication experiences of patients and their spouses from the time of diagnosis to post treatment. Employing the descriptive phenomenological inquiry, the purpose of this study was to explore breast cancer patients and their spouses' lived experiences of their communication as a couple from their own frame of reference during the time of diagnosis and post treatment. Examining individual accounts of five (5) couples from an in depth qualitative interviews and following Colaizzi's method of data analysis, three main themes surfaced as similar among the participants: (a) Breaking the news (b) Hearing the Sound of Silence (c) Keeping the Faith. The three emerging themes reflect the couple's communication challenges during breast cancer illness and generated a continuum of varying emotions. The communication of couples during cancer was associated with great effort to find ways to build hope, stay together and found meaning and purpose to continue supporting each other. The couples in the study embraced cancer and brought them closer together.

Human ; Male ; Female ; Breast Neoplasms ; Breast ; Diagnosis ; Communication