Professionals’ perceptions of complexity and preferences for interprofessional collaborative practice in pediatric rehabilitation: Insights from social network analysis

PurposeIntegrated care for children with disability and complex care needs requires professionals to collaborate across various disciplines and settings. However, it remains uncertain how professionals interpret complexity and how these interpretations influence composition and collaboration in integrated care networks. This study aimed to investigate professionals' perceptions of complexity and their preferences for interprofessional collaborative practice.MethodThis cross-sectional study using a web-based survey with scripted cases included 120 professionals working in pediatric rehabilitation medicine across the Netherlands. Scripted cases were created using the ICF-framework, selecting two elements per domain and modeling each domain at three levels of difficulties (low, medium, high). Thirteen scripted cases were randomly selected using conjoint methodology. For each case, professionals' 1) perceived case complexity and 2a) preferred interprofessional composition were recorded. Social network analysis was applied to examine 2b) preferred collaborative practice per case using four integrated care network metrics: density, overall span (diameter), mean distance between members, and cohesiveness (transitivity).ResultsHigher levels of difficulties in each ICF-domain significantly increased professionals' perceptions of complexity. Preferences for interprofessional composition varied according to levels of domain difficulties and exhibited substantial inter-individual variation. Although higher perceived case complexity was generally associated with preferences for greater cohesiveness, shorter mean distances, and more compact and denser networks, domain-specific difficulties also influenced preferred interprofessional collaborative practices even when overall perceived case complexity was low.ConclusionsThe study identified that preferences for interprofessional collaborative practice varied in relation to perceived case complexity and among professionals. Recognizing these differences at network-level is vital, as it enables the effective functioning of these networks and contributes to improved integrated care for children with disability.