Background: Mental illness is increasing in society. Collaboration between primary care and specialist psychiatry is ongoing. The experience is that many people with mental illness refer to different activities and being left without treatment. Good interaction is important for persons seeking mental health care to get the right help.

Aim: to describe the primary care nurse's experience of collaboration with specialist psychiatry.

Method: a qualitative study based on semistructured interviews of primary care nurses. The material was analyzed by qualitative content analysis.

Results: appeared in the following categories; Collaboration characterized by differences with the subcategories Good collaboration for emergency transfers and poor accessibility and inadequate feedback between the activities. Unclear division of responsibilities with the subcategories care different assessments of the same person, Inadequate knowledge on the division of responsibilities between the professions and gray zone patient - primary care or specialist psychiatry. Last category are resource shortage and low interest in mental health with the subcategories Inadequacy and Interest and respect for psychiatry.

Conclusion: Working according to the division of responsibilities can be an obstacle to cooperation in such a way that the nurse expires blindly from the division of responsibilities without knowing what he/she refers to. Resource shortage, in turn, leads to experiences of insufficiency of nurses. Increased knowledge of each other's activities could lead to closer cooperation and understanding of each other. The person-centered care would benefit from the fact that both instances took care of more people than they actually consider to be part of their area of responsibility.