Perspectives of humanitarian actors on interprofessional care for persons living with diabetes: Lessons from Aleppo, Syria

Background

Proper management of persons living with chronic diseases including diabetes requires collaboration between different health care providers. Yet in humanitarian settings, care is essentially provided by health services organised in silos, without coordination and inclusion of people living with various conditions. Interprofessional teamwork could be a means to address this, but this approach is rarely implemented in such contexts.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 health care professionals from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria and in headquarters Switzerland, to explore their perceptions and experiences of factors influencing the work across professional teams. Qualitative analysis was conducted using an inductive and deductive thematic approach.

Main findings

The perspectives of humanitarian actors on interprofessional care for persons living with diabetes in a humanitarian setting identified four key factors that influence interprofessional collaboration: i) person focused inclusive leadership to overcome competing demands and competition between health teams, ii) reorganisation of health services with a clear structure, appropriate resources and processes for interprofessional collaboration, iii) commitment and openness of the individual health professional to work collaboratively and iv) the key role and capacities of people with diabetes, who need to be included as team members. These four elements interact and need to come together to ensure successful interprofessional care.

Implications

The findings advocate for an inclusive leadership of the interprofessional team, reorganisation of work, empowerment of all team members, and inclusion of people with a chronic condition in the team. Health care providers are thus encouraged to support interprofessional care to address the needs of people living with a chronic condition in a humanitarian context.