We showed the background of participants (Table 1).

Table 1.Background of participants.

Participants were from two psychiatric hospitals. Before this research, we conducted a questionnaire study and some persons showed their intention whether they would receive an interview. Researchers confirmed that they would like to participate in the interview and we recorded them as participants. Eligibility criteria were that participants had experience over three years, because they could lean professional skills. And participants in this study were from different wards.

The interview was conducted in the hospital or ZOOM about one hour. There were 4 questions about “Contents of collaboration”, “Difficult points and ingenuity points”, “Changes in the wards after collaboration”, and “Impressive cares”. We selected these questions in the following way. In the first questionnaire study, we prepared some questions referring to previous studies, and we got results such that there were some commonalities in how they perceive collaboration and influence of it. Then, we thought that these questions in this study were suitable.

We analyzed on another occasion about “Impressive cares”, because it was different from a stream of collaboration influence. We analyzed content analysis as qualitative study, code, sub-category, and categories. The first author made codes that had the shortest sentence with meaning, and similar codes were integrated into sub-categories. Similar sub-categories were integrated into categories. The second and third authors checked the code, sub-categories, and categories. When there were differences in categorization, they discussed until agreements.

This study was approved by Nishikyuyu University. The interviewer explained in detail and got informed consent.

We chose 12 categories for nurses (Table 2).

Table 2. Categories chosen by contents analysis from nurses’ interview.

We obtained 7 categories from pharmacist’ interview (Table 3).

Table 3. Categories chosen by contents analysis from pharmacist interview.

The number of participants was 2 males and 7 females. The range of years was 20 years (3 persons), 30 years (2 persons), 50 years (3 persons), 60 years (1 person). The working experience range was from 3 to 36 years, and it seems to be a large difference.

As for the question < Contents of collaboration > , categories like “Families were convinced by explanation from pharmacist wearing white coat” or “Patients were convinced by explanation from pharmacists” showed that explanations about medicine from pharmacists were effective. On the other hand, about “A pharmacist and a nurse collaborated at discharge guidance” showed that the pharmacist didn’t know the patient’s state or appearance in the hospital life when they talked to families. This result supports Ichimura et al. [7], who found that pharmacies seek information about “patients’ state” or “patients’ family”. From these categories, there is a role for a nurse and a pharmacist clearly. Smith [8] showed that role clarity is vital. Celio et al. [9] said that the lack of role clarity and hierarchical nature of collaboration, nurse-pharmacist collaborators suffer as members feel that their scope of practice is encroached by the other profession.

As for the question < Difficulty and ingenuity > , a category “Nurses valued communication and mutual understanding” supported Lee et al. [10], in which a need of better communication channels, skill mix within varying scopes needs to be further examined, in terms of collaboration.

There are some differences in the results of this study and the previous study. Sugimoto et al. [6] showed categories about hopes from pharmacists to nurses, like “Hope for better collaboration”, “Hoping nurses will make the most of their profession”, and “Establishing a trusting relationship”. In this study, nurses and pharmacists collaborated and tried to make good relationships.

In Japan, the number of pharmacists may be small, and they have come to have another role of medicine guidance in psychiatric wards. In these situations, sharing information timely is difficult. New technology or ICT to promote communication or sharing information may be useful in the future. It supports a previous study [11].

Lastly, we referred to categories. In content analysis, we included both duplicated codes and a few codes, along with basic qualitative analysis, such that a few codes have meaning. Although each participant has various experiences, categories show the individual account.

Collaboration between nurses and pharmacists led to some changes.

“Patients were convinced by explanation by a pharmacist”, “Patients could take medicine by pharmacist’ explanation”, and “A patient could take medicine and frequency of entering the hospital decreased”. It shows that collaboration between a nurse and a pharmacist led patient’s quality of life. Similarly, about taking attentive medicine Clozaril, multidisciplinary monitored effects of this medicine, and the amount of Clozaril was increased, like the category “Medicine amount was adjusted by collaboration”. The facts that patients are beginning to take medicine or increase amount of medicine suggest that collaboration may promote patients’ well-being.

Moreover, nurses’ consciousness for risk or safety changed. Categories “A pharmacist let nurses know the instructions for high-risk medicine”, “Nurses tried to study about medicine”, and “Knowledge in the ward increases” showed that collaboration promoted nurses to study medicine. Then, studying medicine will prevent accidents and maintain safety. This supports Celio et al. [9] or Toivo et al. [12].

There are some limitations. 1) The working experience range of nurses and pharmacists was so large, and it might influence the contents of interview. 2) Participants were volunteers who had intention to receive interviews in the previous study, they might have high consciousness for working as a profession. Then, this procedure might influence the results. 3) The number of participants of nurses and pharmacists is small and we can’t generalize. We need to include many more participants.