Members' sensemaking in a multi‐professional team

The aim of this study is to investigate sensemaking as interaction among team members in a multi‐professional team setting in a new public management context at a Swedish Child and Youth Psychiatric Unit.

A discursive pragmatic approach grounded in ethonomethodology is taken in the analysis of a treatment conference (TC). In order to interpret and understand the multi‐voiced complexity of discourse and of talk‐in‐interaction, the authors use dialogism in the analysis of the members' sensemaking processes. The analysis is based on the theoretical assumption that language and texts are the primary tools actors use to comprehend the social reality and to make sense of their multi‐professional discussions. Health care managers are offered insights, derived from theory and empirical evidence, into how professionals' communications influence multi‐professional cooperation. The team leader and members are interviewed before and after the observed TC.

Team members create their identities and positions in the group by interpreting and “misinterpreting” talk‐in‐interaction. The analyses reveal the ways the team members relate to their treatment methods in the discussion of a patient; advocating a treatment method means that the team member and the method are intertwined.

The findings may be valuable to health care professionals and managers working in teams by showing them how to achieve greater cooperation through the use of verbal abilities.

The findings and methods contribute to the international research on cooperation problems in multi‐professional teams and to the empirical research on institutional discourse through text and talk.