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Purpose: Health systems around the world are struggling to meet the needs of aging populations and increasing numbers of clients with complex health conditions. Faced with multiple health system challenges, governments are advocating for team-based approaches to health care. Key descriptors used to describe health care teams include "interprofessional," "multiprofessional," "interdisciplinary," and "multidisciplinary." Until now there has been no review of the use of terminology relating to health care teams. The purpose of this integrative review is to provide a descriptive analysis of terminology used to describe health care teams. Methods: An integrative review of the literature was conducted because it allows for the inclusion of literature related to studies using diverse methodologies. The authors searched the literature using the terms interprofessional, multiprofessional, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary combined with "health teams" and "health care teams." Refining strategies included a requirement that journal articles define the term used to describe health care teams and include a list of health care team members. The literature selection process resulted in the inclusion of 17 journal articles in this review. Results: Multidisciplinary is more frequently used than other terminology to describe health care teams. The findings in this review relate to frequency of terminology usage, justifications for use of specific terminology, commonalities and patterns related to country of origin of research studies and health care areas, ways in which terminology is used, structure of team membership, and perspectives of definitions used. Conclusion: Stakeholders across the health care continuum share responsibility for developing and consistently using terminology that is both common and meaningful. Notwithstanding some congruence in terminology usage, this review highlights inconsistencies in the literature and suggests that broad debate among policy makers, clinicians, educators, researchers, and ...

Jennifer Chamberlain-Salaun, Jane Mills, Kim Usher School of Nursing, Midwifery and Nutrition, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia Purpose: Health systems around the world are struggling to meet the needs of aging populations and increasing numbers of clients with complex health conditions. Faced with multiple health system challenges, governments are advocating for team-based approaches to health care. Key descriptors used to describe health care teams include "interprofessional," "multiprofessional," "interdisciplinary," and "multidisciplinary." Until now there has been no review of the use of terminology relating to health care teams. The purpose of this integrative review is to provide a descriptive analysis of terminology used to describe health care teams. Methods: An integrative review of the literature was conducted because it allows for the inclusion of literature related to studies using diverse methodologies. The authors searched the literature using the terms interprofessional, multiprofessional, interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary combined with "health teams" and "health care teams." Refining strategies included a requirement that journal articles define the term used to describe health care teams and include a list of health care team members. The literature selection process resulted in the inclusion of 17 journal articles in this review. Results: Multidisciplinary is more frequently used than other terminology to describe health care teams. The findings in this review relate to frequency of terminology usage, justifications for use of specific terminology, commonalities and patterns related to country of origin of research studies and health care areas, ways in which terminology is used, structure of team membership, and perspectives of definitions used. Conclusion: Stakeholders across the health care continuum share responsibility for developing and consistently using terminology that is both common and meaningful. Notwithstanding some congruence in terminology usage, this review highlights inconsistencies in the literature and suggests that broad debate among policy makers, clinicians, educators, researchers, and consumers is still required to reach useful consensus. Keywords: descriptors, interprofessional, multiprofessional, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary

After traumatic events such as emergencies and disasters, there is often an increase in psychosocial distress among communities. As a result, there may be an increase in the prescription and use of psychotropic medications as one way to help manage the symptoms of this distress in individuals. Few studies have considered changes in psychotropic medication usage following a disaster as a proxy measure of the extent of mental health distress in the community. A pharmaco-epidemiological design compared de-identified government prescribing databases for anxiolytic, antidepressant and a control prescription for a 6 month period after the cyclone for all affected North Queensland communities and compared the data with a similar data set from the same time period in the previous year. The results indicate a significant increase in the prescription of antidepressant medications compared to the control drug and the previous year. Determining changes in psychotropic prescribing patterns following a disaster provide evidence to inform post-disaster public health response, planning, and funding. As an increase in antidepressant medications is an indicator of distress in the community, the data from this study provided community mental health nurses with evidence to support funding requests for additional resources (human resources and other) to support post disaster response activities in the local area. Learning Objectives: 1. Increased understanding of the link between emergencies and disasters, and psychosocial response. 2. Recognition that general practitioners prescribe antidepressants as a way of managing distress following traumatic events. 3. Awareness of how sharing research findings can be used to support applications for post disaster response activities.