The nature of interprofessional collaboration between radiation therapists and radiation oncologists in the South African setting

Abstract

This study aims to explore the nature of interprofessional collaboration between radiation therapists (RTTs) and radiation oncologists (ROs) during radiation therapy (RT), with the shared goal of treating patients with radiation. Generally, there seems to be a lack of studies describing the nature of interprofessional collaboration between RTTs and ROs. The present study adopts an exploratory descriptive qualitative research design. The setting is the private and public RT departments situated in the Tshwane municipal area, Gauteng, South Africa. A variation is noted between the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) scope of practice for RTTs, published in 1979, and the new scope circulated for comment in 2021. Practising RTTs and ROs have been invited to take part in semi-structured interviews by using expert purposive sampling. Ten radiation therapists and seven radiation oncologists were interviewed, and data analysis included content and thematic analysis. Two main themes emerging from the data were the dual purpose of collaborative communication and grappling with the collaborative communication divide. The findings indicate team structure issues, the fact that the two disciplines mostly work in separate locations, and the status of current communication being dominated by intermediaries are perceived by the participants to hinder collaborative communication between the two professional groups.