How to overcome poor GP-CN communication by use of SBAR protocol

With the aging of the population, Primary care professionals, e.g. General Practitioners (GPs) and Community Nurses (CNs), often care for complex patient situations, and have to share relevant patient related information. We studied barriers and facilitators that are present in this communication. We found that in the CNs' communication style structure was lacking, causing distrust and irritation by many GPs. Use of the SBAR protocol in Hospital care led to better quality of patient care. In Dutch Primary care this protocol has not been used yet. We hypothize that better structured communication by CNs leads to better patient care in Primary Care as well. For this purpose, we developed a SBAR training for Primary Care that will eventually result in CNs feeling more competent and better empowered. We already recruited 100 CNs in two weeks period of time, underlining the need for improvement felt by CNs. In the current phase, we are training the intervention group and we evaluate CN's selfefficay. We also have tape recorded 40 telephone calls to gain better insight in communication patterns in daily practice. The RCT described in this document, will be used to assess wether use of the SBAR protocol will improve structured communication, will improve GPs judgment and reduce time of telephone calls.



Recruitment only in the Netherlands.

The use of SBAR by Community Nurses will improve their selfefficacy and empowerment.

three time moments:

before the first training session

after the second training session

six weeks after the training session

CNs have to tape record at least two telephone calls with their GP

CNs have to follow a two day SBAR training