Assessment of Surgical Teams’ Teamwork Skills in Pediatric Surgery: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: The operating room is a high-risk environment in which practitioners with different educational backgrounds work together to provide safe care for surgical patients. The surgical team needs to use teamwork skills for safe performance and error prevention. Pediatric surgery is a very sensitive surgery type that needs special psychological skills. Objectives: This study aimed to assess surgical teams’ teamwork skills in pediatric surgery. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 154 surgical teams working in the pediatric operating rooms of two public hospitals in Shiraz, Iran, during the summer of 2021 using convenience sampling. The data were collected by the Mayo High-Performance Teamwork Scale. An operating room technologist collected the data by observing surgeries. Descriptive statistics were used for the analysis of the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 22). Results: The mean value of the teamwork score was 1.57 ± 0.20 (out of 2). The total teamwork score was 25.20 ± 3.31 (out of 32). The majority of items had a score of more than average. The team members had the highest score in recognizing a leader. The studied surgical teams had low scores in verbalizing their activities and repeating back the instructions. Conclusions: The overall teamwork score in the studied teams in the pediatric operating rooms was at an acceptable level. However, the studied teams did not do well in team communication behaviors. Interventions, such as educating, standardizing communications, and implementing a pediatric surgical safety checklist, can improve team communication skills.