[Clinical practice in nursing, and "re establishment of daily routines"--the nurse's role in inter-professional collaboration].

Clinical practice in adult nursing is given during the 4th year at the School of Health Sciences, Sapporo Medical University. In this paper, we report the achievements in this training on one theme. The theme chosen was the nursing of patients and support of their families particularly their caregivers, for whom re-establishment of daily routines was indispensable. A total of 51 students underwent this nursing practice at a neurological hospital on 26 occasions, over 3 years from 1996. We found that the students learned inter-professional collaboration in their relationships with other students, skilled nurses and other professionals in the hospital and other organizations. We also analyzed the nurses' roles learned through the inter-professional collaboration, which could be summarized as follows: 1. Understanding patients' and their families' living conditions and mental state, as affected by the patient's disease or disability. 2. Supporting the safe care at home of patients helping them to re-establish living routines. 3. Educating caregivers on how to attend to patients and develop better attendance skills. 4. Making sure the patients' and their families' living needs are reflected in the support system. 5. Providing nursing information for the coordination process of the support system, as well as respecting patients' and their families' individuality and lives as a whole.