Midwives' views on continuity of care and caregiver

Abstract

Continuity of care and caregiver is the care provided by the same midwife throughout the antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum period (Leap, 2009). This is one of the few definitions of continuity of care, because its definition is still ambiguous. The aim of this study is to explore midwives' views of continuity of care and caregiver. The study seeks to meet three objectives; to explore the midwives' understanding of continuity of care and caregiver, to elicit midwives' views with regards to the advantages and disadvantages of continuity of care and caregiver and to explore the midwives' views with regards to the possible implementation of continuity of care and caregiver in the local setting. Being that there is a vast amount of literature regarding continuity of care and caregiver, the literature review focuses on the advantages and disadvantages associated with such a scheme of care for both women and midwives. lt also discusses factors which influence the implementation of continuity of care. lt is in the 'Data Analysis' and 'Discussion' chapters that the researcher seeks to meet the three objectives. In this study, a quantitative approach was taken to collect and analyse the data. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 30 midwives; using a convenience sampling approach; working in obstetric wards in the Maltese State Hospital, after all ethical permissions were obtained from the University of Malta Research Ethics Committee. Results was analysed by counting the number of times a value or theme appeared in the data, after which they were represented in tables and graphs. Results showed that while midwives have a good grasp of the definition of continuity of care and caregiver, and are well aware of the disadvantages for midwives, they are poor in knowledge regarding the advantages for women, mainly the reduced medical vii interventions which the literature suggests. Despite this lack of knowledge regarding advantages for women, most midwives believe that such a scheme of care should be implemented in the local sector. For this reason, the researcher recommends that midwives require further knowledge and training in order to understand the great impact they can have on women when applying schemes of continuity of care and caregiver.