Sammanfattning
A hospital round is a long tradition in which nurses and physicians communicate to develop an
integrated plan of care together with the patient. There is insufficient knowledge of care
professionals’ experiences of communication during hospital rounds, particularly in surgical units,
where the physician is frequently absent during daily care. Hence, the aim of this study was to
describe nurses’ experiences of communication with physicians during hospital rounds in a surgical
unit. Nine qualitative unstructured interviews with nurses were conducted and analysed using
Burnard’s description of content analysis. ‘An encounter involving opportunities for and challenges to
teamwork’ was found to be the predominant theme. The hospital round in a surgical unit is a short
encounter that can be challenged by missing patient care goals, difficulties in transmitting messages
and frustration over unshared information. Further studies are needed to overcome existing
knowledge gaps about communication during hospital rounds.