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INFLUENCING FACTORS OF NURSE-PHYSICIAN COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIP IN SELECTED HOSPITALS, GUWAHATI, ASSAM WITH A VIEW TO DEVELOP STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIP: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY NEHA RAI1, MITALI BARMAN2 1MSc.Nursing, Department of Medical Surgical Nursing(CTVS), Asian Institute of Nursing Education, North Guwahati, Assam, India 2Associate Professor, Department of Medical Surgical Nursing(CTVS) , Asian Institute of Nursing Education North Guwahati, Assam, India Corresponding Author: Neha Rai ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Effective teamwork between healthcare professionals is recognized to be a critical element of patient safety and quality of care. Collaborative relationships between nurses and physicians in healthcare settings are crucial for optimizing patient care, promoting effective communication, ensuring resource efficiency, and facilitating shared decision-making. These relationships are essential for delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. These relationships are essential for delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. El Sayed and Sleem (2011) view collaboration as a partnership between both parties in a relationship.These authors defined collaboration "as the process of joint decision-making among independent parties, involving joint ownership of decisions and collective responsibility for outcomes".Collaboration in this definition involves not only partnership in the decisions made but also shared responsibility for the decisions made. OBJECTIVES: ? To identify the key influencing factors of nurse-physician collaborative relationship in selected hospitals, Guwahati, Assam. ? To develop strategies to enhance nurse-physician collaborative relationship in selected hospitals, Guwahati, Assam. ? To find association between levels of nurse-physician collaborative relationship with selected demographic variables. METHODS AND MATERIALS:The research approach adopted was quantitative approach. A non-experimental descriptive design was used in this study to accomplish the objectives. Study was undertaken on 154 nurses and 24 physicians of selected hospitals of Guwahati, Assam using Multistage Convenience sampling technique. The data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire on influencing factors of nurse-physician collaborative relationship. Self report was the technique used for it. RESULTS:The findings revealed that out of 154 nurses and 26 physicians, the demographic results shows that majority 82(45.6%) were in the age group of 21-25 years , 165(91.7%) were female, 120(66.7%) were GNM, 89(49.4%) had 1-5years of working experience, 150(83.3%) were unmarried, 60(33.3%) were working in Intensive care unit.Out of 154 nurses and 26 physician majority 172(95.56%) agreed to effective induction class, 61(33.89%) were uncertain to lack of recognition from organizational support factors , 146(81.11%) agreed in open communication from communication factors, 167(92.78%) agreed in cultural respect and valuing each other's contributions, , 95(52.78%) disagreed on blaming one another from mutual respect factors and 166(92.22%) agreed in effective teamwork, 106(58.89%) disagreed to ego from interpersonal relationship.The demographic variables gender (p=0.001), professional qualification (p=0.0001) and marital status (p=0.0001) had statistically significant association with influencing factors of collaboration between nurses-physician relationship at p<0.001 level. The demographic variable age (p=0.030) and total years of working experience (p=0.022) had statistically significantassociation with influencing factors of collaboration between nurses-physician relationship at p<0.05 level. CONCLUSION The present study showed that the level of nurses- physician collaborative relationship is highly influenced by the factors like effective induction class , open communication ,cultural respect and valuing each other's contribution and effective teamwork..The developed strategies based on the factors identified will help to build a positive nurse-physician collaborative relationship.