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One of the obstacles to teamwork is the lack of understanding of the nature of teams and teamwork.
The term team implies a relationship between at least two people belonging to the same or to different disciplines. Disciplines, in turn, are defined as specific fields of knowledge, theory and techniques particular to a group (Morrow-Lettre, 1999; Ste-MarieMorin, 1993). Depending on its composition and the interactions between its members, a team can be unidisciplinary, intradisciplinary, pluridisciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary.
Unidisciplinary and intradisciplinary teams comprise members from the same discipline. Teams consisting of members from different disciplines are classified as pluridisciplinary, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, depending on the amount of interaction between disciplines.
Unidisciplinarity suggests homogeneous views, whereas intradisciplinarity involves different points of view from within the same discipline (Ray, 1998). For instance, a nursing team working in a given care unit whose members generally share the same approach to care would be a unidisciplinary team. A team of nurses who have varying, particular fields of expertise would be an intradisciplinary team.
Pluridisciplinary describes a team composed of members from different disciplines. However, each may practise his or her profession independently (Gusdorf, 1990; Ray, 1998). The term pluridisciplinary is often used to describe an institution in which different types of professionals provide services (Ste-Marie-Morin, 1993); an example would be a hospital or polyclinic that offers general and specialized medicine, dentistry, nursing and physiotherapy.
In a multidisciplinary team, several disciplines are brought together around a common issue (Morrow-Lettre, 1999). Members of multidisciplinary teams are aware of the contribution of other disciplines and thus develop a broader picture of the patient and his or her environment. However, care may be fragmented. An inhospital team responsible for assessing the needs of a patient who is about to be discharged is an example of a multidisciplinary team: the opinions of occupational therapists, physiotherapists,...