Chilean midwives and midwifery students' views of women's midlife health-care needs

Abstract

Objective: to determine Chilean midwives' views with regard to Chilean women's health-care needs in midlife. The aim was also to explore Chilean midwifery students' views on the clinical care provided to women in midlife.

Design: a qualitative study using focus group discussions and narratives which were analysed using thematic manifest and latent content analysis.

Setting: 10 different primary health care (PHC) centres in Santiago, Chile.

Participants: 22 midwives, working in PHC clinics and 13 (n = 13) midwifery students with PHC clinical experience, attending their fourth or fifth year of midwifery education at the School of Midwifery in Santiago.

Findings: the midwives felt that women in midlife have special health-care service needs. They also considered themselves to be the most appropriate health staff to provide health care for women in midlife, but recognised that they lacked competence in attending psychological and social health-care needs of women in midlife such as violence, abuse and sexuality issues. The midwifery students remarked that many midwives focused their attention on fulfilling the biomedical requirements. Even if the midwives had knowledge about recent research on menopause, they had difficulties in approaching this issue and including it in their counselling. Some students also questioned the sometimes disrespectful attitude shown, especially towards Peruvian immigrants and women with psychosocial problems.

Conclusions and implications for practice: the findings suggest that midwives need more education about women's health-care needs in midlife, and that more focus should be placed on the psychosocial aspects of midwifery. More reflections about the quality of the client-provider relationship in clinical practice are needed. Gender issues, the structure of power relationships, and empowerment should be incorporated and critically discussed during midwifery education and training, and also in clinics.