Introduction:

Given the challenges of today's increasingly aged society, teamwork between nurses and rehabilitation specialist nurses is essential to ensure quality health care for the elderly.

Objective:

To analyze the difference between the professional practice of general care nurses and rehabilitation specialist nurses concerning teamwork developed in the context of elderly care.

Methodology:

Quantitative, descriptive-exploratory, comparative, cross-sectional study. Non-probability convenience sample composed of 192 nurses working with elderly people in hospital and community context in the Northern Region of Portugal. An ad hoc self-completion questionnaire was used, which included the following variables: sociodemographic characteristics, activities/practices developed by nurses in elderly care, and the task interdependence scale.

Results:

Sample composed of 85.9% nurses and 14.1% specialist nurses; 76.0% work in community health and 24.0% in hospitals. There are differences between the information shared within the team, with rehabilitation nurses valuing the request for collaboration for continuity of care, social conditions and medication, and the others, the change in the disease situation. Opinions on direct contact as a preferred strategy for sharing team information are unanimous. Regarding task interdependence, rehabilitation nurses show dependency on the help and support from their team mates to carry out their professional practice.

Conclusion:

There are specificities regarding the practices developed by specialist rehabilitation nurses, suggesting that they are leaders within the teams. The identified gaps identified require (re)thinking the practices.

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