'Giving midwifery care: student midwives' views of their working role

Abstract

Objective: to explore the opinions, feelings and views of student midwives of their education as they progressed through their two-year programme in Ireland, with the intention of interpreting and understanding the working and learning world of the participants so that future students might be assisted to improve their educational experiences.

Design: using quantitative and qualitative methods. A phenomenological approach was used to guide the qualitative section of the study reported here.

Setting: all seven midwifery schools in Southern Ireland.

Participants: all students in the first intake of 1995 in every midwifery school in Ireland (n = 125).

Data collection: individual and group interviews, diary-keeping and questionnaires.

Key conclusions: the findings presented here illustrate the students' views of their working role. The environment appeared to be one of work, rather than learning, and the students' status that of junior employee rather than 'learner' They perceived themselves as 'thrown in the deep end' without much support or guidance from qualified staff. They were frightened, unsure of themselves and suffered from role conflict and loss of status. There appeared to be an acute shortage of staff and the care given was seen to be the basic minimum, fulfilling women's physical needs but ignoring their emotional ones. The care given appeared to be planned according to routine and economic necessity rather than for sound midwifery, medical or social reasons.

Implications for practice: the education of students needs to focus on the development of autonomous practice and the use of routines and non-research based care should be phased out. Students need to be assisted, with support from educated mentors, to plan care in a holistic way that will enable them to develop their midwifery skills in the future.